Bamboo has a long history of use as a construction material, and engineers are now using the durable plant to build affordable housing that can withstand natural disasters.
As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported, bamboo has been a popular building material in tropical countries because it's readily available, strong, and flexible. However, as houses got bigger, the humble grass lost favor with builders since it was considered too fragile to hold up in major storms.
But the Philippines-based nonprofit construction company Base Bahay Foundation has developed a way to strengthen bamboo so that it's both disaster-proof and cost-effective.
The builder created a new and improved bamboo material using cement-bamboo frame technology, which is "a shear wall system … that uses load bearing bamboo with metal connections and mortar cement plaster," according to the Inquirer.
Because it's proved to withstand fires, earthquakes, typhoons, and insect invasions, it was certified by the National Housing Authority's Accreditation of Innovative Technologies for Housing, which was created to evaluate construction technologies that could cut housing costs.
Base Bahay general manager Luis Felipe Lopez told the Inquirer that the sustainable technology could slash construction costs by 20-30% compared to plain cement. It takes about 500 acres of bamboo to build 1,000 homes, but because the plant grows so quickly, construction times are drastically reduced.
In addition, the cement technology is able to cool houses much faster at night than regular cement, which is a major win in the face of rising temperatures. Tropical areas such as the Philippines are particularly vulnerable to the effects of our overheating planet since they often don't have the infrastructure to weather increasingly volatile storms.
The company builds both low-cost housing and emergency shelters for disaster victims. So far, Base Bahay has constructed over 1,500 homes in the Philippines, including more than 200 homes for victims of the catastrophic Typhoon Yolanda, which struck the region in 2013.
Cement bamboo frame technology works with buildings up to two stories tall, but it can be stretched as necessary, per the Inquirer.
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"We're working in low-density areas [where a building can be as wide as desired] and places where people do not know yet how to live in high-rises," Lopez said.
The CBFT technology is being deployed in other countries, including Nepal, where nearly 800 cement bamboo homes have been built. Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, and India are also home to the innovative dwellings.
Lopez said the technology has taken off more in the Philippines because there is more space for housing developments. However, he hopes it will soon catch on worldwide as an alternative, affordable housing material to help communities better prepare for climate disasters.
Lopez is busy promoting the technology to public and private construction companies and is working to make Manila the headquarters for bamboo cement technologies. In the future, he hopes to assemble a network of builders that will use CBFT in their everyday construction projects.
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