Bamboo Housing Workshop in India

Bamboo housing workshop was held in October- November- 2001 in Aizwal, Mizoram, India. INBAR and UNIDO cane and bamboo technology center in Guwahati, Assam and the government of Mizoram jointly organized a bamboo housing training workshop with a focus on affordibility and earth quake resistant. INBAR brought two Latin American architects: Mr Jorge Moran from Equador and Mr Juan Carlos Jaramillo from Columbia to Aizahal for a hands on technology transfer exercise.

The workshop had both theory and practice elements. A total of more than 70 participants from the bamboo and housing sectors in Northeast India including NGO and government building agency representatives and several international participans attended. During two weeks, they had an opportunity to learn about the long standing history of building with bamboo in Latin America both low cost and high end. The sessions also addressed the issues of plantation management and preservation of bamboo as building with bamboo requires an integrated management system that begins with the resource itself.

Theory sessions were followed by intensive design and practice sessions, enabling all participants to combine tradition and fantasy in new ways and to grasp the improved construction system. The costruction of model house using local materials and exotic techniques involved the participants and added an ambitious elements to the workshop.

Participants agreed that the workshop provided an important stimulus. The government is now considering the use of the technique for their official buildings. All in all, hte event was a successful case of INBAR mediated south-south cooperation.

To enable the replication of the approach, the workshop is being documented in the form of a manual in INBAR's series of Transfer of Technology Models (TOTEM) which will be available as PDF and on CD to INBAR affiliates.

Source: Ralf kwaschik, Information Specialist, INBAR