Bamboo Builders

        New techniques for joining bamboo culms allow extraordinary buildings to be constructed. An engineer from Human University, China, has constructed a 10-meter bridge which can support a 16-tonne truck with
beams made from a bamboo composite. Then there is the ZERI Pavilion at the World Expo in Hanover,
Germany, built in 2000 by architect Simon Velez claims that he can build "anything in bamboo faster and just
as cheaply as if it was built with steel."

        Award-winning US eco-architect Micheal McDonough agrees. "Bamboo is the star of environmentally friendly building materials, "he says, "Technically, it's more stable than oak or cherry wood. Woods expand and contract in the heat and himidity but bamboo barely moves." Flexibility is another prized characteristic. "In earthquakes, bamboo buildings flex like a big basket so they stay up where more rigid steel and concrete structures collapse," says McDonough. In Limon, Costa Rica, only bamboo houses remained standing after a violent earthquake in 1992.
 
       And in many Asian countries, even if the buildings are not made from bamboo, there's a good chance the scaffolding being used to support their construction is. Two facts restrict its wider use. "In many countries it is still seen as a poor man's materia," says Evelin Rottke, bamboo expertat the Aechen University's Institute for Structural Design in Germany. "Outside Asia it isn't yet used because engineers have not established the
construction standards and specifications which the building industry demands. But most important is its strenght. Architect Stephen Roe, who, with Chiafang Wu, designed the much-lauded Bamboo Forest House in I-Lan, Taiwan, notes its tensile strenght is greater then steel  and its compresive strenght is greater than concrete. Not bad for grass.