Neri Braulin, Valeria Chioetto

Bamboo as a building material: light, resistant and elastic. The new Pavilion in Vergiate, the first permanent structure in bamboo for public use made in Europe, shows the possible applications. And the ‘vegetal steel’ will become the core feature of sustainable architecture

The Pavilion in Guadua Angustifolia built by EMISSIONIZERO in the Ticino Park (northern Italy). The structure has been completed with the delivery to the Municipality of Vergiate in July 2003

Bamboo is a building material that has been used for thousands of years in areas of Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia where it grows abundantly.

All plants with circular section (straw, sugar cane, wood) used as building elements in structures such as roofing, flooring, ceilings, walls, bridges etc. have a similar static behavior. They are extremely resistant to traction and torsion, have similar elastic properties and almost identical variables proportional to the dimensions and independent from the shape and the procedure of the transmission of the loads.

Thanks to its size, lightness and resistance, bamboo is an exceptional product of nature. The physical characteristics are ideal for creating light but strong structure. Frei Otto, as part of the activity at the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL), demonstrated that this material is lighter and more resistant than any other existing plant material, for example wood (which is solid, while bamboo is empty) and animal bones, including bird wings. So it is just not possible to ignore a material with resistance twice that of glass fiber and which weighs six times less than steel, which gained the name of plant steel for its structural performances. 

Bamboo, and particularly the species ‘Guadua angustifolia’, of the tropical forest plants is the most efficient in fixing carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, and therefore ideal for combating the greenhouse effect and the resulting global warming of our planet.

Over the centuries, many construction techniques have been developed for the creation of bamboo structures destined to a number of different uses and characterized by different shapes and details. Bamboo was essential in the development of bridge building techniques. The Chinese invented suspended bridges using bamboo bark fibers to make the cables. Bamboo bridges can be found in India and in Latin America. The traditional vernacular architecture in China, Latin America and in South-East Asia is brimming with bamboo structures. Japan also has a long building tradition with bamboo. Over the years, this marvelous grass lost its reputation as a noble building material for basically two reasons: the relatively short life span of the bamboo constructions (a critical factor that has been overcome with the development of the treatments against attacks by parasites and molds) and the association of poverty created by the widespread use of this material by the inhabitants of the favelas because it was so cheap compared to the cost of other materials. Even today bamboo is considered to be a poor-man’s building material.

Recently, there has been a certain degree of interest for this material, given its potential use in view of the current crisis of availability of natural building resources.

This plant grows very quickly and with great density; it is available in enormous quantities exactly where the demand is greater to satisfy the need for homes.

Research centers across the world and international organisms such as the FAO have been interested in developing solutions on this issue.

There are national Bamboo Associations in various countries – China, Japan, India, United States, Belgium, Germany, Holland, France and Switzerland, etc.

China houses the headquarters of INBAR (International Network for Bamboo and performance standards which can be applied to construction techniques (www.inbar.int)

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