Architectural Village
The vast oceans and forests of our blue-green planet are awe inspiring. Temperate and tropical forests are the lungs of our planet. They breathe in carbon from the air, breathe out oxygen for our life. Forests call the rain, cleanse the air, circulate weather currents, regulate global climate. Our vast breathing forests need to be restored.
Humans have been cutting them to eat and to build. Now is our time to change how we build. Building from fiber waste and grass means using less trees and more plants and grass fiber. Bamboo is a giant grass. Some species grow stronger and harder than oak in just 5 years. Why wouldn’t we want to build with a strong natural fiber that takes 5 years to grow? The average family home, built from wood from trees, takes about half hectare of forest.
The same home built from bamboo, takes only the size of the house itself, because bamboo grows so fast and so dense. This means we save 20 times the earth’s surface area to grow our houses. This takes pressure off cutting forests. Building with bamboo is rebuilding our forests. Imagine a bamboo house of grass in the trees along a breezy beach. A romantic dream only a few people get to live out in their lives and a few more get to visit on a short vacation to remember how life can be in paradise.
Today beautiful bamboo houses are being built in all kinds of climates for people who want to live in a bamboo house. These houses are large, strong, beautiful and environmentally sustainable, with all the amenities. They are way beyond the little house of grass on the beach, but still have the same feeling for those who live inside. The next evolution is using bamboo as structural material for all kinds of buildings in cities and towns, where most people live. These won’t look like little bamboo houses. What will they look like?
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Materials provided by CRG Architects