Bamboo has been used as a building material for aeons. More than a billion people live in bamboo homes and it is the main building material in some Asian countries such as Bangladesh where about 70% of the population dwell in houses that are partly or fully made of bamboo.

Interestingly bamboo housing is becoming popular in Hawaii, USA where people can afford concrete and timber buildings. The dedicated team of Bamboo Technologies in Maui, Hawaii has been working for about a decade to get bamboo recognized as a building material. "Looking for an environmental friendly building material, we got enlightened about bamboo during a workshop in Bali, Indonesia in 1990", says Jeffree Trudeau, president of bamboo technologies and an environmental sensitive, highly dedicated leader of the organization.

However, it was not an easy task, marvels Jeffree. After spending a lot of time looking for the right bamboo for building, we found a species namely Bambusa stenostachya in Vietnam that could possibly meet the standards. The real battle then started, adds Jeffree. There are no building codes for bamboo in the US and it took a long time to gain conditional approval from the local authority to erect demonstration bamboo buildings in Maui. The International Code Council (ICC) is the main organization responsible for writing US building codes and Bamboo Technologies has consulted different institutions to test engineering properties of bamboo including fire and termite attack tests. The report has already been submitted to the ICC and ICC is expected to issue a technical report for the bamboo species within a few months. This would facilitate building officials to issue permits for bamboo buildings.

The Hawaii bamboo houses are prefabricated in Vietnam. Bamboo Technologies has established a factory in Vietnam with a local partner. The factory provides regular employment to about 400 local workers and provides income to a large unspecified numbers of growers and harvesters supplying the factory with bamboo.

The process of prefabrication is simple and primarily based on local knowledge, simple technology and tool. Four to five years old bamboos are harvested. They are graded according to size, diameter and wall thickness to meet standards for different purposes. The bamboo poles are then heated in a chimney to straighten them and helps partially endure them against fungal attacks.

All the poles are treated with BORON using the vacuum pressure method. "It is a highly effective method that ensures the penetration of the preservative deep inside the bamboo wall and we are the only ones using this method so far" claims Jeffree. The effectiveness of the treatment can be witnessed in Maui where the first bamboo buildings erected about 8 years ago are intact with no fungal and termite attacks and with no changes in their original quality.

The factory has different sections to perform different activities of pre-fabrication. The workers are professional in performing their job. To make sure the skill level of the workers, they have to go through three different stages. Initially they get training on "how to do the specific job" then they are employed as an assistant to an expert worker and finally they would become a regular worker.

The houses are prefabricated as panels. Panels are designed according to the need and the design recommended by an architect. A panel consists of main poles (frame), intermediary poles, flattened (stretched) bamboo and plywood. The sections of a panel are joined with nails, normal wood glue and natural jointing techniques. Bamboo Technologies has come up with innovative environmental friendly jointing techniques without using bolts or other materials. In fact the whole process is designed to be as environmental friendly as possible.

A house is usually habitable within a few months of ordering. First of all, the interested client has to obtain approval from the local authority for the design of the building. After finalizing the design with the owner of the building, it is sent to the Vietnam factory for prefabrication. It might take 1-2 months to finish prefabrication work at the factory and about 25 days for shipment from Vietnam to Maui. The assembly of a house takes a week maximum depending upon the size of the building. So far 33 houses have been erected in the Hawaii islands and the demand is growing. Recently the company has expanded its Vietnam factory to meet the increasing demand.

Mr. Stephen Reeve, a resident of Kipahulu, Maui is very keen to erect his bamboo houses in the following week. Panels have been arrived and the foundations are ready. He has got incredible patience to wait for two years to get approval from local authority to build 7 bamboo structures in his farm land. When asking for his motivation to build with bamboo, he says that he did not find alternatives for environmentally friendly building material. He has also planted varieties of bamboo in his farm and is dreaming about a good bamboo enterprise in the near future.

Although demand is increasing, there is also a little hesitation among the clients to purchase a bamboo house due to lack of building codes. The government does not provide mortgages to buy such houses and clients have to depend upon private companies for the purpose. Secondly, there are some fears as to whether the codes will be approved at all. However, Bamboo Technologies guarantees a refund if this happens. But all are expecting a positive outcome from ICC in the near future.

Once ICC approves the codes, it seems that the demand for bamboo houses will be massive in the islands. Mr. Robert Henrikson, another active member of the organization, suspects that they may have a tough time supplying unprecedented demands in the near future.

High demand for bamboo for legally permitted housing in developed countries will be an important advance for the prosperity of bamboo resource economies. Building high status and expensive bamboo housing will help turn bamboo from a "poor man's timber" into a prestigious building material.

The complete story of Bamboo Technologies, producing bamboo houses in Vietnam and assembling houses in Hawaii is available online at www.BambooLiving.com and www.BambooTechnologies.com. The websites offer downloadable PDF brochures and Quicktime movies.

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Construction of a house

Almost complete

Innovative joint

Stephen (right), the house owner and Robert (left), supervisor of pre-fabrication in Vietnam

Pre-fabricated panels and Jeffree, the president of the company