Does anybody have any experience with sustainable building using bamboo or other natural material? If so, please do share your experience here, as well as post any interesting links and resources with good information!

In front of my friend's house, some people cut loads of bamboos to clear the land for building, and they were just gonna burn it, so I mentioned I would gather them instead and keep for myself. I was thinking of using the bamboos to build things, house, furniture, whatever, though I got no experience with it. Im waiting to see if someone with such expertise shows by, but in the meanwhile im just gathering these huge bamboos and puttinig them together lined up, a few cms away from the floor by resting them on two other parallel bamboos. Ive been reading about people that to treat, boil it, or soak in boric acid, or soak in diesel, but nothing so far seemed sustainable or doable so far in my situation. Does anybody have any tips regarding how to treat a bamboo (or how to keep it well in the meanwhile) ?

No experience myself but I found this http://www.chalet-bamboo.com/treatment.html
Seems like many of the methods are pretty natural and easy, possibly sustainable.

Unfortunately that link doesn't work, Orion. 404 error it sais.

I too have been interrested in cheap building materials. Bamboo is certainly
worth looking into as some species are known to grow 1 meter a day! Madness!

A friend of mine from the surinams told me how they used to make floors of
bamboo strips, interwoven with one another. Allthough there may be sharp edges.
This way you could make alot of things. Furniture, Roomscreens, Ceilings and
whatnot.

If this interrests you, then Rotan should also interrest you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotan
A quite similair material, allthough I'm not sure if it grows as fast as some Bamboos. So bamboo
would probably be more sustainable a building material.

As for curing bamboo, I'm no expert, but I guess giving a structure of bamboo about 3 proper coats
of Epoxy should make this bamboo structure pretty Water, Termite & Rot-resistant. A simple coating
of varnish or paint may also do wonders. Guess woodpreparation methods could be applied to bamboo as well.

Ancient people's from all over the world have build extensively with wood. Ships, Houses, Halls, Walls, Carts...etc.
What did THEY use to preserve wood? We know for instance that many cultures with strong, developped navies used things like tar to make wooden ships watertight. Surely the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Celts, Vikings,
Goths, Arabs, Persians, Aztecs, Mayas & Incas were familiar with preparing wooden constructions to resist seawater,
rainwater, hot & cold cycles, termites & woodrot. Perhaps look into history and learn from our ancestors.

More and more I get the idea that our ancestors were much more intelligent than we are today.

I've never built with bamboo, though I have heard a humorous anecdote about some hippies trying to use bamboo instead of trees for a teepee in ceremony, for sustainability reasons. The teepee cover was too heavy, causing the bamboo to bow inward and the teepee to repeatedly catch fire during the night.

I'm sure bamboo is perfectly suited to other applications, though Either by engineering the structure to take advantage of its natural strengths, or by somehow treating it in a sustainable way to make it more rigid and sturdy. I'd also love to hear whether anyone has successfully used bamboo as a mushroom substrate.

Fixed link

Thanks Orion. That is great information.

And Yerba; Indeed many bamboo species may prove to be great substrate for mushrooms.
I remember Shulgin, in TIHKAL, mentioned how many bamboos contain Serotonin, Tryptamine,
Melatonin & related tryptamines. Also mashed up bamboo may make for a quite airy substrate
due to the fibres being long & thin.

I have no experience with buildings of bamboo...

But, i know someone who does.

The permaculture research institute of australia has a course they teach about natural building. They use many things, but most of the buildings there are made with bamboo (or something similiar like sugar cane), mud, sand, and lime. He says its super easy to repair, is biodegradable, and can lasts nearly 1000 years! Also he says its porous, so no moisture gets trapt inside and destroys the wall, like cement.

I haven't built much with bamboo aside from several pipes and a few bongs. Then one day I stumbled across this article about how to make a bamboo bike frame. I haven't had access to enough large pieces of bamboo to build one, but I thought it seemed like a really cool idea.

http://m.instructables.com/id/H...-Build-a-Bamboo-Bicycle/

I really like the idea of using it for furniture. I'd say, be creative. There's no right or wrong way to put it together, but also do some research first to get some ideas about how you might put together some furniture. I personally would make a porch swing!

If one of the preservation techniques calls for diesel, I don't see why peanut, or some other very attainable organic oil wouldn't work. In wood shop in high school I made a few cutting boards and treated them with olive oil. It would probably soak into the bamboo, and maybe need more maintenance, but it's a possibility.

Good luck! I'd love to see what you end up making!

I just remembered another building material, which allthough not quite naturally produced, in the
end will be a mostly natural product: Seacrete (AKA Biorock)

An electrically conductive (but corrosion-resistant) structure(Iron for instance) is be submersed in seawater.
A buoy with solar panels and/or wind generators provides a small, but constant electric current.
A negative charge is run through a cable & through the submersed Iron structure while a positive charge
runs through another cable & through an electrode suspended in or near the negatively charged, iron structure.

In essence it's like growing a gigantic, thick clamm shell.

This image explains it better than words:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com...aHOONM/s1600/biorock.jpg



I highlighted some very interresting characteristics I found Seacrete to have. Allthough the growth process is relatively slow (about 5 cm per year), building large, solid structures like ships, submersibles, floating islands,
entire houses, walls, pillars and whatnot would become ALOT cheaper this way.
Also ALOT less labour intensive.

It would be a matter of submersing an iron mesh structure of the desired shape in the sea & anchoring it down.
Then release a buoy with Solar cells & anchor it to that same anchor. Then run down 2 cables from the Solar Cells
down below: The negative 1 to connect with the iron structure & the positive 1 to connect to an electrode.

Then you play the waiting game.
In 4 years the walls of your structure would be 20 cm thick. By then you could dive down to it & pump out all the water from the interior spaces & replace it with air from the surface.
(If valves are installed in all spaces' outer walls)
I guess you could also place large, airfilled bags inside of the interior spaces to keep the water out from the start, but you might have to use a significantly heavier anchor to counter the extra buoyancy. Then, after 4 years of growth, it's a simple matter of diving down and releasing the structure from it's anchor, and it shoots up to the surface.

If it's a house you could tow it to shore with a boat. If it's a ship then you'd just install engines,
electronics & mechanics into it and off you go. I bet you could grow floating islands like this.
And this island could continue to grow over time if current was continuously applied.

David Farrelly's 'The Book of Bamboo: A Comprehensive Guide to This Remarkable Plant, Its Uses, and Its History' is a fantastic resource, perhaps the best. You can get a used copy on Amazon for ~$12.

Some varieties of bamboo can grow up to 100 cm (39 inches) in 24 hours. It doesn't get much more renewable than that !

I did the off the grid thing many moons ago. - I will post that story separately, its worth a laugh or two.
On this project we started with an empty piece of land in the desert, and ran out of money just putting down infrastructure. Nothing was build at all, but I did learn a few things. If anything what not to do
Here, I just wanna talk about materials we experimented with. Our structure was suppose to last a long time, have plenty thermal mass, be strong, use natural and locally sourced materials, and of course be energy efficient.
First we looked into ‘earthships’, and they promised everything we were looking for. But they were kinda smelly inside (grey water circulating) so we decided on doing our own thing.
Initially we wanted to use those earth bags promoted by that iranian guy (ceramic houses). This method proofed way too labor intensive. Unless you have a village to help you, forget that idea(..those bags are still sitting in a container). In Retrospect, earth bricks and rammed earth seems like the best idea if you wanna go 100% natural. You can get a fairly cheap machine that will spit them out all day long. Build whatever fancies you with it. - easy! Problem is you’d still have to add some kinda insulation. Thats where it gets tricky if you wann stay “natural”. Foam is of course best, but there is none to be had that is not plastic. - Not yet! Certainly you have heard of that company that is using mycelium to make styrofoam parts for shipping boxes, yes? If, some clever chemist could make that stuff waterproof we are onto something..
Still, dealing with heavy bricks is no easy task. The ideal material should be light and strong. Like this new metal here (99%air):
http://www.treehugger.co...-metal-ever-999-air.html
One could make 1’x1’x2’ bricks that even children can build with. The natural version of it you can see in Arequipa, Peru. A lot of structures are made out of the local white volcanic rock. Our modern version of it is called Rastra block. Make it yourself, or order some of of those new turnkey solutions, like “greenblock”. There you get it all, thermal mass, and insulation. I have seen a guy build a little castle almost by himself with this method. He does not need a heater or an air conditioner and from the outside you could never tell - Looks like some solid adobe house. Yes, styrofoam is not great, but it sure works!
I hope, in the future we can make foam that won’t end up into oceans. Meanwhile recycled foam could be used for building such structures. So here it is, thats my 5c on this topic. I hope it is helpful to someone.

cheers

I don't, but this house is pretty awesome and made from bamboo.

Sharma Springs

I can also recommend viscose bamboo socks, much nicer than cotton.

Some research I'm working on...