Though bamboo has been used in buildings in China and elsewhere in the world for millennia, it has not penetrated the industrialized construction market (though bamboo scaffolding is used in Asia in the construction of high-rise buildings)
A USC prof is researching and promoting the use of bamboo in place of steel for construction. (Do you have any comments, Dan?)
When we were in Hong Kong a few years ago, the sight of bamboo scaffolding going up a high rise building was unbelievable. We are not talking a few stories high, but the bamboo stretches up 20-30 stories high that seemed to sway in the breeze.
Would you walk on that??
I hope they tie the sticks together with really tight knots!
I also worry about running out of bamboo for the pandas if the use of bamboo becomes widespread.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I think the push for finding cheaper materials in construction is largely due to the rise in interest of building durable buildings in third world countries.
I think naturally we would think of bamboo swaying and being very flexible… but it sounds like what this professor is doing is using laminated bamboo sheets, so its not what we see on chinese kung fu movies where we chop some bamboo and piece it together
The impacts it listed are interesting, but I think the extent of the use of bamboo is gonna be limited to 1-2 story homes and pedestrian bridges
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:33 am
The laminate bamboo flooring that is getting popular now looks pretty good. After all the labor in fabrication, it doesn’t look like it can be much cheaper.