The Bamboo Renaissance
In recent years, Bamboo has found fame as a rapid-growth, renewable building material of exceptional versatility. Not only strong, lightweight, economical, flexible and abundant, its beauty as an architectural element is also being captured and experimented with in ever more extraordinary ways by a growing body of bamboo builders and creatives, who become positively religious in their attraction to this wonderful plant.
Course Outline
This course teaches first-time builders how to design and build their own house from the ground up, using bamboo and predominantly natural materials in tropical and temperate climates.
Topics covered:
* Site selection
* Barefoot architecture - how to go about designing and planning your own house
* General introduction to natural building materials
* Foundations 101
* Introduction to bamboo and its many uses
* Bamboo framing and architecture, including engineering for earthquake resistance
* Wall fill and plastering techniques
* Natural building tour
For hands-on practice, we'll be building a volunteer dormitory and bamboo furniture.
There will also be a two-day field trip to several bamboo plantations, a bamboo treatment unit, a bird sanctuary, a Guatemalan market and views of a live volcano.
For more information visit our website:
http://www.returntotheforest.org or contact me:
monika@returntotheforest.org
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