Journals Proceedings

International Journal of Civil & Structural Engineering

The new frontier of green architecture: Bamboo as building material

Author(s) : ANNAMARIA DELL'AQUILA, ROBERTO CASTELLUCCIO

Abstract

The architecture of the 21st century works with unusual and uneven shapes, showing a getting bigger wish to astonish people, but facing the environmental and economic issue and holding out against earthquakes and calamities. So, the point is: which is the right Building Material? All designers know that it's a big challenge finding the perfect building material, that allows creativity being environmentally friendly and cheap. Moreover, versatility would be another good selling point. Let's figure out a building where structure and skin speak the same language: a material that allows that truly exists; naturally grows up in the temperate and subtropical zones of all the existing continents; it is the new muse of architects all over the world: the bamboo. Its great mechanical resistance allows us to use it for structural needs, its flexibility is particularly suitable both in seismic zones and in articulated shape design; the low weight makes it a good choice for realizing performant coatings and all kind of furnitures. Choosing bamboo for architectural designs means using an eco-friendly and infinitely renewable resource, since it grows one meter per day circa and helping the environment, instead of destroying it. EU strongly believes in this material, since it was, as a matter of facts, included as building material in the project "Switch Asia" by the European Union itself, as reinforcement of concrete instead of iron by Future Cities Laboratory and ETH Zurich. What to say? Two birds with one stone. This study analyzes the structural functions of bamboo as building material within the project of a civic centre, where it shapes a big gridshell held up by tree-like pillars, realized with twenty centimetres diameter bamboo reeds . The resistance of this material mixed with its huge highness allowed to cover the whole free-space atrium of the civic centre with the bamboo gridshell. As a matter of fact, it turns out to be the key-element of the civic centre itself, meant to be the place devoted to education, sport and culture of Fuorigrotta neighbourhood in Naples.

No fo Author(s) : 2
Page(s) : 109 - 113
Electronic ISSN : 2372-3971
Volume 3 : Issue 1
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