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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Making the bamboo pavilion

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Hope for Education

Hope for Education ( an effort to raise money for school in Namje) here in Kathmandu this past Saturday was a grand success!
The turnout was well over expected- more than 170 people- and we managed to raise over Rs. 1,28,000 (approx USD $ 2031) after costs. Food and wine was good and the live performances [...]

Elevation for school in Namje

This is our new design for a laboratory and library for an existing school in Namje (near dhankuta). The structures are ofcourse bamboo and the walls are 45cm thick rammed earth.

International Conference on Modern Bamboo Structures

International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, University of Southern California, USA, Oita University Japan and Hunan University, China jointly organized an international workshop on modern bamboo structures from October 28 to 30 In Changsa Hunan. The workshop covered the various research and development activities on bamboo based structures and related topics. The participants also observed [...]

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