‘Resilience in Bamboo’

Abstract

A number of zero-carbon prefabricated bamboo buildings were built engaging marginalized communities in a few places in South Asia. This action-research was conducted by teachers and students of architecture who designed and built sustainable structures made of local materials such as bamboo, straw, rope and mud. The prototype design was revised, whenever needed, according to the climate, topography, landscape, materials as well as the traditional wisdom of the local tropical context. The building is significantly cost effective, especially in rural areas since it uses indigenous materials and local labor. The prototype structure using treated bamboo and a special rope-knotting system originally went through shaking table and wind tunnel tests by the prototype designer. The multi-use structures, now a year old, are weathering quite well. Short-term temperature readings of outdoor and indoor of some of these structures were collected to study the thermal performance in summer, and the indoors were found to be more comfortable than the outdoors.

The fact that most of the participants are women in both the students and community members prove the ability and confidence of women in building industry, which also addresses sustainable development goals.

The prefabricated bamboo structures have been particularly impactful in disaster-prone areas, serving as disaster rehabilitation buildings. After a devastating flood, over 2,000 of these buildings were constructed in a city, showcasing their value in disaster resilience. The project also allowed students and academics to directly apply classroom knowledge through hands-on building experiences.

The paper thus focuses on the major contributions of this action-research on constructing sustainable buildings addressing climate change, disaster resilience, involvement of marginalized communities especially women, and the knowledge dissemination in the academia.