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Bamboo
Research
Centre
Perceptions On Bamboo
With the ever ongoing ravages to its environment,
the earth desperately needs our renewed attention as
well as our rightful actions or our children’s
children will surely not have a world fit to live
in. Of course there is no single solution, but
amazingly, the simple bamboo plant can make a
dramatic positive impact in many areas. It is our
responsibility to raise awareness about the
relationship between bamboo, people and environment.
Bamboo enters the life of people in the form of a
jholi in which the child gets to hear his mother’s
lullabies. And at the end too, bamboo carries off
the dead body on a bamboo bier. Between this two
ends of life, it meets many human needs in a
thousand and more ways.
Bamboo, or giant grass, is the fastest growing plant
in the world (some even grow at the amazing rate of
two inches per hour). One can almost “watch it
grow”. Size varies from miniatures to towering culms
of sixty meters. Ready to be harvested within three
to five years, bamboo is strong, flexible and light
– one material that is almost comparable to steel.
These features make bamboo important tools in the
artistic palette of architects, engineers,
designers, furniture builders or hobbyists. There
are over 1600 species found around the world - 64%
in southern Asia, 33% in Latin America and the rest
in Africa and Oceania. There are primarily two types
of bamboo - running and clupping. Running bamboo is
found in temperate climates and in high mountains.
This bamboo produces both a culm (vertical shoot
above the ground) and long horizontal underground
shoots called rhizomes. Clupping, or tropical
bamboo, have larger diameters and thicker walled
Bamboo is unique in that it is strong in both
tension and compression. While tensile strength
remains the same throughout the age of the plant,
compressive strength increases with the years.
Bamboo protects the environment and the air we
breathe in because of its following qualities:
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It provides the fastest growing canopy for the
re-greening of degraded lands (e.g. Hiroshima)
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Bamboo stands release 35% more oxygen than
equivalent stands of trees.
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Some bamboo even sequester upto 12 tons of carbon
dioxide/hectare from air.
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It can also lower light intensity thus protecting
against ultraviolet rays.
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A renewable resource, and having anti erosion
properties, bamboo is also useful for stabilization
of river banks.
Bamboo -
Towards a New irection
Bamboo, although a natural plant having a thousand
and one uses, is being increasingly overshadowed by
the advent of newer tools of modernity. Due to
recent “branding” trends and the homogenization of
western tools throughout the globe, less emphasis is
being given to local materials. However, everyday
architecture has not only to be functional, but
also, economic, and so, now the time has come to
explore this natural implement which will benefit
the community due to its advantageous architectural
merits, one that is more relevant to local lifestyle
as well as being economically viable. If exploited
properly, bamboo, a renewable resource, could prove
to be one of the most economical tools of
construction.
So, the fundamental theme of choosing my thesis
project as “Bamboo Research Center” is to promote
the humble bamboo as a worthy building material. I
have tried to explore its wide range of uses in the
field of architecture. I have used bamboo in various
innovative ways in my design. Bamboo can be used as
cladding material, structural member, truss member
or to reinforce concrete and also as a partition, a
floor, a bridge, a canopy and so on.
Planning Approach
On a larger scale, the site is divided and organized
in a square which is generated from four right
angled triangles, which in turn has been laid on the
site on the basis of two main site forces- a flowing
stream on the site as well as the access road. The
approach was developed from a concept of ‘green
think’ - a nature-based way of designing and
building that begins with nature based geometry.
What is a nature based geometry?. Earth, sun, moon,
tree, hill - either circular or triangular in a
plane geometry or as a sphere or a pyramid in a
solid geometry. Even a square is a form developed
from a triangle and from the same is developed, a
cube. So, why not research for a new form from a
material of nature itself? In other ords, it is an
attempt to understand the source of symmetry seen in
nature, and the structural order of the symmetry in
space. The search for this understanding can be
approached in two ways -.mathematically and
structurally.
Mathematically, one can base it on the Pythagoras
theorem on which depends natural laws and universal
geometrical theories. Such as a right angled
triangle where p2 + b2 = h2, and in which if
there were no correspondence to this right angle
formula, the universal laws would not have existed.
So, the basic planning of my project started from
the natural form of geometry i.e. a right angled
triangle.
The Entrance
The architectural synthesis of middle and distant
views from the foreground together with all the
subjective qualities of material and light, form the
basis of “complete perception”. Entrance must be
that point from where the perception of the space
may start. In my design, my major intention was to
provide a panorama of bamboo buildings - as if
entering into a small bamboo city. Tall overhanging
green bamboos, at a distance, formed the background
of my design, where the buildings themselves,
exhibiting a bamboo mood, were successful in
providing the proper foreground for any viewer from
the entry point.
Reusing The Past And Re-Imaging The Future
Actually, this is the concept of green architecture,
which I have tried to reflect in my design. Derived
from renewable sources, green building materials
consume less energy and are less polluting besides
being environmentally sustainable. These materials
do not affect natural forests even when used
extensively in construction along with steel, cement
and primary timber.
The primary challenge of the project was to use
bamboo based building technology and the secondary
challenge was to provide an ideal “Bamboo Research
Center”. The final test was to use this technology
in a way that is aesthetically pleasing too, so that
in future, others will also be encouraged to used
bamboo as a highly promising green building material
having attractive advantages like low energy
consumption and higher strength. The goal was to
have bamboo accepted not only as ideal material for
low cost buildings, but also for buildings having
higher architectural values.
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