An in-depth focus on bamboo building, presented by Guest Blogger, Sam Small, of Bamboo Technologies and Bamboo Living. The article (below) appears with the kind permission of Hotel Executive.

Structural Bamboo is growing in it’s applications worldwide.  Bamboo is one of, if not the fastest growing plant on Earth. And wherever it grows it is used as building material, for as long as humans have been building. But now that it has been certified that properly treated Structural Bamboo meets international building codes, bamboo has become one of the fastest growing structural building materials in the worldwide sustainable construction industry. Take a look (below) at the largest modern bamboo building built to date: 55,200 sq ft.

The International Code Council (ICC) certified in 2004 that Structural Bamboo Poles produced by Hawaii-based Bamboo Technologies comply with International Building Code (IBC), International residential Code (IRC) and Uniform Building Code (UBC) standards and since then over 100 building-code compliant bamboo structures used as homes and vacation resorts have been pre-fabricated and shipped from the BT factory in Viet Nam to be re-assembled on sites all around the world.

The international certification was the result of years of research and testing to find ways to protect bamboo from insects and rot and it paved the way for the legitimate use of structural bamboo by architects, designers and builders worldwide in all sorts of applications. Whatever architectural expression, residential, commercial, even bridges, that have historically been built using wood, can potentially be built “to code” using structural bamboo instead.

But Bamboo has particular characteristics and strengths that are different from other building materials, which deserve to be fully explored by architects and engineers. Bamboo is an extremely strong fiber; with twice the compressive strength of concrete and roughly the same strength-to-weight ratio of steel in tension. It’s extremely lightweight by comparison: just four workers can lift a 26 ft long triangular bamboo roof truss into position by hand. The known limits of Structural Bamboo continue to be pushed: some of what has been achieved to date include a 90 foot Free-Spanning Truss, 30 foot roof eaves and Multi-story construction.

How do you entice the best minds in architecture, design and engineering from around the world to focus on what can be built out of Structural Bamboo and what service these structures can provide? You sponsor an International Bamboo Design Competition. And so BT did!

Last year, Bamboo Technologies, INBAR (International Network of Bamboo & Rattan) and the International Bamboo Foundation sponsored the competition. We offered over $12,000 in cash awards, the opportunity to have winning designs commercially produced by BT and inclusion in a globally distributed book and traveling exhibition. With cash prizes offered, word sure got around and we garnered over 100 relevant web mentions about the competition.

And now a new competition “Design for an Eco-friendly Community” is being sponsored by ArcSpace.com, Ecolandnow.com, INBAR and Bamboo Technologies and is welcoming hybrid designs using at least 25% Bamboo. Entrants will be able to add their visions to an interactive 3-D eco-community on-line at arcspace Island in the virtual world called secondlife.com. Winners will have the opportunity to see their buildings built in bamboo forests in China and on the real-world island of Maui.

It’s also worth noting that building with Structural Bamboo doesn’t require that the building look like a bamboo building. Bamboo Technologies’ architect David Sands designed the Hip House to look like any other house, even though the primary structural elements are Bamboo. The photo here shows connected Hip Houses with tile roofs and cement and stucco walls. It’s available with a dual wall construction that facilitates insulation, making the design and application of Structural Bamboo appropriate for virtually any climate, cold or hot.

Bamboo is the next green building evolution, and it’s heading your way. This giant grass is… Renewable: it takes 60 years for a tree to grow 60 feet, bamboo can grow as tall in 60 days; Restorative: bamboo absorbs more CO2 and releases 30% more oxygen than a tree; and Strong: in Costa Rica, all 30 bamboo houses at the epicenter of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake survived without any damage, and all of the code-certified buildings built by Bamboo Technologies are hurricane rated for sustained 180 mile an hour winds. Now code-certified Structural Bamboo is available for use by architects and engineers throughout the world on projects the scope of which will surprise you.

Find extensive details on our bamboo homes and resort structures @ Bamboo Living.

And there’s a great virtual tour of the interior of one of our bamboo homes @ Tropical Bamboo Hideaway.

Related:  previously on altCon – (9.30.08)
bamboo pre-fabs on St. Croix