“Re-Design the World with Bamboo” at the Architectural Festival at Lombok
Festival of Bamboo
The island of Lombok, Indonesia, is set to hold the “Lombok International Architecture Festival” from December 11–14. Organized by the Indonesian Institute of Architects, this festival will display 50 architectural installations developed by teams from 50 different countries. The premise: installations built primarily from bamboo. The Festival’s theme is “Re-Design the World with Bamboo.” Using the cultural setting of Indonesia, which supports bounteous uses of the bamboo plant across the country, the Festival seeks to promote the use of bamboo as a sustainable and renewable resource and primary material in construction.
The indigenous knowledge of bamboo and its uses sets Lombok as a perfect locale for the festival. Lombok, as well as the surrounding regions in Indonesia, stands to benefit mightily from the attention in the way of tourism. Yuwono Imanto, the Marketing Director for Propan Raya, a large Indonesian paint company, will sponsor the event and launch a product called Bambookote. Bambookote is an environmentally friendly paint designed for base-layer painting of bamboo bark. The product and the company Propan Raya showcase the great strides that can be made in the way of eco-friendly technologies when companies apply themselves to such thinking.
Bamboo growth on a large scale is currently confined to China and smaller regions nearby. China is the world’s largest exporter of bamboo. The Festival is being held in hopes that collaboration on construction techniques using bamboo will increase the global awareness of bamboo’s value as a construction material. Bamboo strength and flexibility have been graded as more earthquake sound than traditional timber and its lightweight nature make it more fuel efficient during transportation. The hardiness of the plant render it able to grow in most climates, and its rapid growth rate make it one of the most sustainable and renewable resource options for our planet.
Bamboo’s Recent Growth
Bamboo as an eco-friendly product has made many strides in the recent years. Bamboo still seeks to take a stronger hold as a viable resource for textiles, construction, and food across the world. The example of Propan Raya’s eco-friendly paint invention should be viewed as a shining example of what else can be achieved if Western society would apply research towards more sustainable resources.
Rather than a conference of 50 countries gathering bamboo construction technologies, the United States is starting extremely small. A few companies are working on bamboo construction techniques while other companies are seeking to fund bamboo plantations across Central America to bolster this vision.
Consumer Responsibility
Bamboo stands as one of the premier candidates for sustainable construction resources replacement. The speed at which it grows, and the density at which it is able to produce timber catapults its efficiency far beyond what normal lumber trees can accomplish. In a world where more than one million acres of forest are destroyed each year, a new option to support our constant demand more timber must be considered. As the consumer demand for eco-friendly materials grows, so will the supply. Lombok, Indonesia is taking a stand to increase the awareness of bamboo as a construction material – maybe we should do the same.
Author Bio: Taylor Wanket, an avid bamboo enthusiast, writes a blog at Fiber Element to share his knowledge of bamboo abroad. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, and became interested in the earth-friendly benefits of bamboo and bamboo’s products while completing an undergraduate project, and subsequently visiting Japan.
Bamboo image from Shutterstock/ Chursina Viktoriia