Please help - your vote may help raise interest levels

[roland_trim]

Dear all,
This is a request for a bit of help with a design competition. I'm not actually fussed about the competition, but want to use it to get some funding for the "bamboolam" or "bundled bamboo" building concept. The idea is to use small young bits of bamboo structurally rather than aged big bamboo members. The difference between the two is about 3 years growth and that the smaller bits grow all over the world as weed.

I started this when I read an aid agency manual talking about how to build a new house:
Step 1 - Clear weeds from site. Careful with he bamboo as it will shoot up again if the building is not started within a few days....
Step 8 - send an agency worker with the bamboo lorry to ensure the shipment is not "diverted".
(another one talks about the steel structure and ensuring the lorry does not get stuck - never mind that a single lorry  will trash the road forever)

To help please visit the link below and look at the entries. Then (and only if you think we merit it) vote for entry no. 5 and maybe 2 others. Sign off as "others".
http://arupcause.ning.com/page/all-team-entries

There is a prize for guessing what the all the good doctor's qualifications are, but no prizes for seeing which entries were not by engineers (several would not stand up!).

[Will_Lee]

I certainly have never said that, and the letters after my name aren't quite that!

(It is a pretty good material though, and I did vote for your entry)


YM Spruce :1100 kN/cm2
YM Bamboo: 2000
YM Steel (not stt: 21000
YM Glass: 6300
YM Carbon (approx): 53100

http://bambus.rwth-aachen.de/eng/PDF-Files/Mechanical%20properties%20of%20bamboo.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fiber

These numbers seem to vary a lot every time I look them up, and not just because of the units!

(The point is its a lot stiffer than wood, but not as stiff as glass)

[roland_trim]

Sorry Will, I think we may have added a qualification in translation 

[Stuberry]

Just to play devil's advocate...

But what happens when this idea really takes off and everybody starts hacking down 6month old bamboo. How long will it take for bamboo to become extinct?

[MK]

Plant more, and it will only take 6 months to grow again, i think that is the point, a lot more sustainable than 200 year oak..

[roland_trim]

The aged bamboo takes a couple of years from weed. The local building method is usually to raid the local hillside - this causes landslides (and they trash a load of young stuff in the process). Aid agencies are at least a bit more responsible and find the farmed members, hence the lorry and the general road destruction.

Small clumps can be economically farmed without detrimental effect on food growing soil, as "waste ground" is suitable. 6 months is a short enough timescale to make it worth while for a subsistence farmer and therefore the cash can be diverted from transport to local growth. Yes there is a problem with an unemployed lorry driver 

[Stuberry]

My point was that 6month old bamboo won't have had a chance to re-produce before it is cut down. The idea of only cutting down and using specially farmed bamboo is great, but I think Sabah is an example of when that sort of "responsible" farming doesn't work. There will always be the minority that spoils it for the majority.

At least 3 yr old bamboo will have had a chance to propogate the species.

[roland_trim]

Bamboo propogates by a spreading root mechanism - it seeds and flowers very rarely. So you can cut repeatedly on the same patch (it is a real pain to remove from  garden).

[phil_kirk]

It sounds like the branbles that my next door neibourgh has in his garden.  Now can we build anything out of brambles?

Some species that proporgate in this way tend to throw out more shoots when they are harvested in this way so regular harvesting may promote denser growth.

Now (I haven't looked at the link) but I assume that the method of bundling the bamboo canes and connecting the sections is the secret to sucess.  Is the plan to make a frame and then fill the gaps in with woven pannels.