Economic Potential of Bamboo in Nepal

Posted on | March 10, 2008 | 1 Comment

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.

Bamboo Truss

Posted on | January 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

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We had been “underground” in Harsar trying to finish the work at for CareNepal. Here is the first installation of our truss. This is just a training for bamboo connection to the local craftsmen. The real thing is yet to come!! The current unrest has put a hold in the progress, lets pray that the work will resume soon.

Hope for Education

Posted on | January 4, 2008 | Comments Off

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 by Tulsi Parajuli, Kunti Moktan, Sita Gurung, Kutumba, Barta Gandharva and Mica Sundari were superb. This is in addition to Rajiv Goyal’s previous fundraising effort in New York, which had already raise about $30,000

The event and Namje got some press in a few of the dailies (including http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=132889) and interviews are still underway.

Namje Design

Posted on | December 7, 2007 | Comments Off

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Elevation for school in Namje

Posted on | November 18, 2007 | Comments Off

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

Posted on | November 17, 2007 | Comments Off

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 the work dones by Hunan University on bamboo housing and bamboo bridge. About 60 participants from China and abroad attended the event. Nripal Adhikary from Abari also presentated a paper on a locally developed bamboo treatment method.Click here for the full paper

Bamboo Connection

Posted on | October 4, 2007 | 3 Comments

Here is a very elegant bamboo connection done by a progressive hungarian design group Medence Csoport . Though their website is in Hungarian, the have some very interesting pictures of their bamboo art projects.

Website of the week

Posted on | October 4, 2007 | Comments Off

Good news! Our abari website was nominated as “the featured website of the week” in Hits FM 92.4′s program Surfing. It is a tech program run by Alok Thapa, that reviews different sites which deal with different technological, cultural and social issues. Its our honor to be featured in such an esteemed program.

Harsar Construction

Posted on | September 24, 2007 | Comments Off

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Pictures from Construction at our site in Janakpur.

Treatment Article

Posted on | September 19, 2007 | Comments Off

Here is a full article on our treatment process.

Thanks

Posted on | September 17, 2007 | Comments Off

We would like to thank our webmaster Kurt Gardella from Germany for doing wonderful work with our website. The new gallery set up is making our website even more informative. Thanks to this great website, we have been very visible on the web.

Pictures of Harsar

Posted on | September 14, 2007 | Comments Off

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Pictures of Harsar in added in the Gallery section. Please take a look.

Bamboo in Janakpur

Posted on | September 12, 2007 | Comments Off

Harsar, a tiny village near Janakpur, is where our construction is taking place. It is a small impoverished Maithili village, which has a mix of Hindu and Muslim community who are living in a relative harmony.  However, the vices of untouchability, child marriage, superstition and inequality still haunts this village. Most of the people make their living through farming, but the young people are migrating to India and Gulf countries for better paying jobs. The area is rich in natural resources mainly in bamboo, mango, eucalyptus trees etc. CareNepal is trying to promote bamboo as a modern construction material, and they have chosen Abari do so. We are using the old materials but with modern connection and bending techniques.

Laying the foundation

Posted on | September 10, 2007 | Comments Off

The work in Janakpur has finally started after much unavoidable delay. Abari team just got back from laying the foundation. Below ground level, stones are dry stacked. We have very high plinth level (3 feet) and we have used little bit of cement for bonding and as moisture barrier. Dried stack foundation are used a lot in traditional construction. They are believed to absorb seismic shock, since there is room for lateral movements. Frank Llyod Wright was inspired by this kind of foundation, as used in Japan. He used them for his seismically resistant buildings.

Brickmaker in Nepal

Posted on | August 26, 2007 | Comments Off

Please click on the above picture to see an adobe brickmaker in action. These people have been making bricks for generation. They can make upto 500 bricks a day. Its ironic they make so many sun dried bricks in a day yet its hard to buy the bricks , its because all these bricks are later burnt in a kiln. Since burnt bricks are more expensive then the sun dried bricks (almost 1000% more), brickmakers are reluctant to see them. Sun dried bricks alone, are unfortunately not used in construction anymore. Burnt bricks consume lots of energy to make and obviously during the process they produce lots of smoke. Furthermore, heat retaining capacity of clay die out when they are burnt. So the sun dried bricks are better thermally and ecologically then the burnt bricks.

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