Bamboo Houses Stand Up To Earthquakes
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 3.08
It is called the "poor people's timber" and even in China it is not accepted as a modern building material. But bamboo, like lumber, makes a light, flexible house that is much better than "modern" materials at surviving earthquakes. Now International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) is actively promoting it as a replacement.
"So far, massive construction or reconstruction means concrete structures in China, and bamboo is little known for this [building on a large scale],” says Shayam Paudel, INBAR’s director of bamboo housing programs, in the Christian Science Monitor. Unlike the "Tofu" concrete structures that collapsed and killed thousands of kids in substandard buildings, bamboo makes a much simpler structure.
-At least 600 million urban dwellers in Africa, Asia and Latin America live in "life and health-threatening homes". At least one billion people do not have access to safe and healthy shelter and the number will increase dramatically with population growth if the appropriate action is not taken (UNEP, nd).
-One billion people live in bamboo houses. In Bangladesh, 73% of the population live in bamboo houses. Bamboo provides pillars, walls, window frames, rafters, room separators, ceilings and roofs.
-It has been calculated in Costa Rica that only 70 ha of bamboo plantation are sufficient to build 1000 bamboo houses per year. If these houses were built with timber, 600 ha of natural forest would be destroyed each year.
-Studies show that processing of bamboo requires only 1/8th the energy for processing of concrete and 1/3rd of that of wood to create a building material of the same capacity. In comparison to steel, bamboo needs only 1/50 of the energy for processing (Roach 1996).
- Due to the lightweight and favorable elastic properties of bamboo, buildings made from it are very good at resisting earthquakes. All 30 houses in the epicenter of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake survived without any damage in Costa Rica.
- Bamboo possesses excellent strength properties, especially tensile strength. Study shows that bamboo is as strong as wood and some species even exceed the strength of Shorea robusta and Tectona grandis (Sattar, 1995).
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
While much of modern-day building in China is done with steel and concrete, ancient Chinese intellectuals preferred living in retreats made of bamboo, a plant whose qualities were often likened to the character of an honorable man.
In Yunnan Province, which borders Sichuan, the Dai minority still lives in bamboo homes. And in affluent Zhejiang Province, where bamboo is plentiful, local officials have been encouraging architects to design recreational infrastructure using bamboo.
Building experts in China who have been testing bamboo give it the seal of approval for building in the seismic zone.
“Bamboo can be an excellent engineering material. The technology is mature. We believe the bamboo and plywood with a steel frame should be good for earthquakes,” says Chen Xu He, formerly a Chinese Academy of Forestry researcher, who tested the bamboo panels used in the INBAR models. via :Archinect
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- The New Bamboo: More Than Material, It's Art
- GreenBuild: Making Beauty from Waste at Engineered Timber Resources
- Serious Materials Makes Serious Windows
- Bamboo in Chinese Art
From the Forums: Will More Money Make You Happier?
|
NY Times on Eco-hotels, Linda McQuaig on Reopening NAFTA
|
Did you check out those joining plates? A building made of Balsa would be fairly sturdy with those.
When you speak of bamboo as a green material and advise the use of it for more and more things - are you talking about bamboo that comes from forests that Pandas need for their habitat? Where is all of this bamboo coming from? Bamboo farms are mentioned in this article - if more bamboo farms are created, what is being taken away to provide farmland for bamboo?
I saw a house at the Solar Decathalon that was using bamboo supports and cross-beams. It looked sturdy enough, and I love that it is a much more sustainable lumber source than old-growth lumber (although I do love pine hardwood floors, but that's probably just my spoiled americanism).
Bamboo is an amazing material, I just wish it wasn't $300 per sheet of ply in Canada...
There should really never be a concern about Bamboo as a building material, hell all of North America is using young pine and other young trees to stick build their houses...tell me that's not crap wood, and except for constantly building in tornado alley and along hurricane prone coast lines they stand up well...especially if constructed properly.
So the comments above about the joiners making it strong...you could use a lot less and still exceed North America's building codes.
And the comments about logging natural forests...yeah, it's pretty much always a bad idea...again, people will worry about panda's but not the domestic wildlife in their own forests.
If farms are created in place of existing farms then that would be great...just a different type of crop for an already existing and established farm.
I would welcome these bamboo laminate trusses with its huge metal braces. Many times stronger than what you see being constructed here with 2x4 and 2x3 (!!) truss systems.
Looks like you could build a house on top of it ... and I think that roof is a bit overbuilt for that house in particular.
Lot's of bad-mouthing Palm Oil around Treehugger, but not bamboo? What happens when forests are cleared to plant bamboo?
@Tendo ... yes that was the Santa Clara House -- they took 3rd place overall -- and it was the first use of code approved and engineered bamboo structural members in the US. Rather impressive.
I also loved their solar thermal powered AC (absorption chiller).
@ mick ... Bamboo can be farmed and harvested in as little as 5 years. and can grow in marginal soils Much better than the "fast" growing southern pine which is 25+. So yes, it takes land, but much less than alternatives (and much less energy to process). If you still have a problem with that, feel free to sterilize yourself and live out the rest of your years in an (urban) mud hut. Be sure to eat only grass and bugs. :)
sorry, couldn't resist and that is as "low-impact" as I could think of of the top of my head.
One the cooler things about bamboo, and the reasons it is so sustainable, is that when you harvest and use bamboo for buildings, you pretty much use ALL of the plant. When cutting pine and other trees, they chop off quite a large amount of branches that are unusable in most lumber mills. These are still usually used (as wood pellet fodder and sometimes coal) but for the most part bamboo is much more efficient. As someone else stated, it takes far less time to grow to maturity and can grow in very bad soil.
I understand the concern about land being used to grow bamboo but as someone else has mentioned it grows fast so the same land can be used over and over instead of using more virgin land, it requires less land than our current timber does so more plants can be harvested in the same size area of land. So if an area currently cleared for timber is replanted with bamboo in theory it will save alot of forests from being cleared down the road.
Im a little concerned by the fact that people think by looking at the picture of framing that they know how strong bamboo is, and that that structure is over built. Every type of wood has a different strength to it and bamboo isnt even a wood, but a grass. I'm curious if it is comparable to pine or another wood in strength when measured inch to inch. If the picture is showing what is required to equal standard 2x4 construcion it may not be that benificial. if it takes 1/3 the energy to process but you need 4 times as much its not as good as it sounded at first.
Also, even if it is as great as they say and as strong, unless we can start growing and manufacturing it in the states i would have to wonder if its any good for us. How much fossil fuel is used to truck the heavy lumber to the shipping yard, then ship it across the oceaqn and then truck it to the different states?
Sounds great and has a lot of possibilities but like everything else it has to be fully examined before start jumping on the soap box promoting this as a replacment to anything.
I am convinced that Bamboo is an outstanding agricultural product with many uses. In fact I have planted bamboo in areas on my farm that are not good for trees, food crops or grazing; either too wet or rough. My Bamboo is thriving and I hope to harvest and market it to a variety of sources. Some varieties are resistant to cold weather to -20 F; that type Bamboo grows great in Ohio. It grows faster than trees and as I understand it bamboo converts more CO2 to O2 than trees; good for the environment too.
Although bamboo is a very durable wood, the very safest infrastructure for homes in earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes are shipping containers (ISBU modules).
The shipping container is recyclable and also strong enough for a massive green roof if desired.
About the concern for pandas and bamboo plantations invading their habitat...bamboo harvesting is done mainly in Zhejiang province, in the east of China. Pandas are only found in Sichuan province, in the interior.
I have visited bamboo plantations in Zhejiang and it is a beautiful natural area akin to the bamboo jumping scene in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Bamboo forests have existed there historically and were not just planted as a new farm crop. No clear-cutting either, just selective cutting of few year old mature trees. The bamboo grows like a weed and naturally in these parts.
Many bamboo plants are commonly grown in the States. In fact there are over 250 bamboo plants that are native to the US. Numorous of these bamboo are great for building. So, bamboo for construction does not need shipped from Asia, more people in America need to start growing it.
This is a great idea and bamboo looks beautiful in homes, I think many Americans would like this idea it just needs to be spead.
Bamboo Technologies achieved UCC certification of it's bamboo poles as structural building material in 2004. Since then we've delivered over 100 building code certified bamboo structures used as homes, and vacation resorts all around the world. Originally designed for tropical environs we've recently added SIPS panels to our designs so the structures are appropriate in any virtually climate. And the house are indeed extremely strong and stable. In Rarotonga, our structures a have already withstood three cyclones. And these are prefabricated designs delivered as finished panels as modular homes assembled in a matter of days.
check them out at http://bambooloving.com
Bamboo Technologies achieved UCC certification of it's bamboo poles as structural building material in 2004. Since then we've delivered over 100 building code certified bamboo structures used as homes, and vacation resorts all around the world. Originally designed for tropical environs we've recently added SIPS panels to our designs so the structures are appropriate in any virtually climate. And the house are indeed extremely strong and stable. In Rarotonga, our structures a have already withstood three cyclones. And these are prefabricated designs delivered as finished panels as modular homes assembled in a matter of days.
check them out at http://bambooliving.com