News Category Posts
The spring is here, and so is our work. Here is our studio in Janakpur. We will churning our more trusses this spring and winter. People interested in learning about (or with) please write to us.
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COB
The unevenness of bamboo can be compensated by using cob. Cob is mixture of cowdung, wheat husk and clay which are left to ferment for atleast 24 hours. Fermentation is known to produce lactic acid, (a polymer base) which also makes it . We have used cob with adobe which enables us to place bamboo vertically and/or horizontally without any problem in addition of having beautiful plastered surfaces.
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Bamboo and hinduism
Bamboo and hinduism has a very interesting connection. It is said that bamboo shoot should not be harvested by a brahmin, as it is compared to a killing child of the family. Similarly brahmins should not plant bamboo or a banana, they usually hire a people of other caste to do so. But on the other hand, on all brahmin wedding, bamboo and a banana are mandatory, and the deads are always carried on a bamboo stretcher.
In kathmandu, bamboo should not be harvested on Sundays or wednesdays and on a new moon night or a full moon night, while in the eastern nepal bamboo are not harvested on mondays.
On the other hand, bamboo and a banana are mandatory in a hindu wedding. One should always carry a dead body on a bamboo stretcher.
It is believed that whereever buddhism went, bamboo went along. Bamboo and buddhism were intrically associated. As the buddhism spread, it is believed that hindus got scared and started attacking buddhist beliefs. And since buddhism was intricately tied to bamboo, they started by attacking bamboo. Perhaps that is why, the traditional skilled craftsmen of nepal are not the brahmins but of other groups.
But in the modern days, things are changing, as the caste system is being replaced by the class. Now there is a class bias against bamboo, as it is considered sign of poverty and backwardness to live in a bamboo house.
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Fire Resistant Thachted Roof
Prof. Dr. Jiv Raj Pokhrel, president of Nepal Center for Disaster Management, has been working on a fire resistant thached roof, in which he puts a half inch mud plaster on top of a traditional thachted roof , which is then covered with a uv protected plastic sheet. By doing this, oxygen is blocked out and fire will die out quickly even if gets there. The cost is minimal. It uses little bit of plastic, but it will make thachted roof fire resistant!!
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Thatched Roofs
It is a ritual in many Asian countries, to fix one’s roof before every monsoon, and to plaster the whole house after it. Maintaining one’s house every year before and after monsoon is seen as a ritual and not as a sign of poverty. Nepalis knew of glazed tiles yet they still insisted on burnt clay tiles or thatched roof, as they understood that the roof also needs to “breath.” The illusionary quest for the ultimate waterproof material, with “zero maintainance” has brought us to the age of plastic and steel. The major flaw of modern architecture, in my opinion, has been to move away from pitched roofs to flat roofs, because we “discovered” the ultimate water-resistance capability in concrete. Pitched roofs regulat temperature, they also protect outer walls with their long overhanging eaves. We have seen many development in the fields of natural walls, like adobe, rammed earth, compressed earth blocks, strawbale etc. but the roof and foundations still need more research. It defeats the purpose of having thick earthen walls, if we have to put galvanized steel, or concrete roofs as they have very poor thermal qualities. The good old thacthed roofs, needs to be encouraged more. They have exquisite thermal quality and sexy aesthetic appeal. Unfortunately, durability (in wet climates), fire and mice problems still deter people from using this roofing materials.
Above is the picture from Laos, where people are fixing their thached roof. Look how many people can bamboo rafters hold!!
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Truss Fabrication
One of the main reasons for disuse of bamboo in modern construction is due to a lack of skilled human resources. For better or worse bamboo can not be standardized. Bamboo comes in different shapes and sizes which makes it a very difficult material to work with. Bamboos are very hard to produce in an industrial scale. But we take that as a blessing. Sustainability, we believe, also means scale. It is very difficult to make things sustainable and yet cater to a highly industrialized and consumerist lifestyle. Anyways, to work with bamboo requires lots of patience, creativity, improvisation and obviously skills. One has to treat every bamboo as an individual, as they look and behave differently. With a little bit of encouragement, bamboo can challenge any material. With our primitive tools, we are here fabricating bamboo trusses (10 meters), that are strong, durable and perhaps more elegant than steel.
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Making the bamboo pavilion
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Adobe, Cob and Bamboo
The work in Janakpur had stalled for various political reasons, one being kidnapping of our overseer. Well! That all seem pretty normal these days. Anyways, the villagers put all their effort to resume the work. It just heartbreaking to see, how much love and effort people have put into this project. We not only see work in Harsar as our seminal work because we have an opportunity to try out different construction methodologies like rammed earth, stablized earth blocks, adobe and cob but the social aspect of working with the community has just priceless.
This is a section of a wall with a high stone plinth and foundation, two layers of burnt bricks, adobe wall for thermal mass vertical and horizonatal bamboo reinforcement against earthquake which are all topped off with cob wall for a better adobe and bamboo connection.
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Indigenous Knowledge
Anyone, who has been to the hills of South-asia during the damp monsoon walking on the unbroken contours of the rice terraces must have thought that there is a low cost and sustainable reality to the urban chaos. In many parts of Nepal, most people do their farming in Phant (foothills) and the terraces because they are generally fertile, humid and have enough supply of water. In the evenings the farmers walk up hills as they are coolers, safer from mosquitoes and floods read more
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Economic Potential of Bamboo in Nepal
Bamboo has had a very historical and cultural association in Nepal, it is used in almost all aspects of life from construction, marriage, death to livelihood. The use of bamboo however, has been only subsistence, and the modern market for it is not well developed. With the growing bamboo demand in the world, abundant availability of the resources, vast traditional knowledgebase and cultural affinity of this material in Nepal, there is a tremendous potential for it to contribute to the people’s livelihood. This paper focuses on how traditional bamboo users, who amount to around 3.3 in Nepal alone, can be integrated in to the modern market.
Read the full article.
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