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Bamboo
and the island lifestyle have always seemed a perfect
fit. In Hawaii's climate, bamboo flooring, furniture
and fences are common sights. Bamboo holds the promise
of a sustainable, cost effective, and ecologically
benign alternative to the widespread global deforestation
of temperate and tropical forests. In addition, designing
with bamboo gives both the pleasure of working with
sustainable materials as well as a natural beauty
and grace.
However,
being able to explore the potential of bamboo as a
building material, as commonly used throughout Asia,
has not been accepted in the Hawaii due to building
permit restrictions and lack of data and applied research.
This is changing thanks to studies being conducted
by the International Bamboo Foundation and the recent
news that Maui county granted dwelling permits for
all of Bamboo Technologies model homes.
DWELLING
PERMITS:
On February 6, 2003 Bamboo Technologies was granted
dwelling permits for all of its model homes by the
Maui County building department.
This means that anyone who builds a Bamboo Technologies
home on Maui will be able to get a dwelling permit
for their home with a simple
application to the building department. There will
be no need to go through a lengthy and costly code
of appeals process. Bamboo Technologies says that
dwelling permits for the other Hawaiian Islands will
soon be accepted as each island building department
is anticipated to follow the lead of Maui County.
<Testing
Process Continues:
With the help of Bamboo Technologies, the International
Bamboo Foundation continues to forge ahead with the
testing process to make
bamboo an accepted building material in the USA and
international markets. Currently Stage 2 of the 3
Stage testing process is well underway.
Stage
1 involved the collecting of bamboo test poles in
Vietnam, the structural testing and insect damage
testing at Washington State University and the University
of Hawaii, and the writing of a report summarizing
the testing that was presented to the ICBO.
Stage 2 involves the Joint Testing of bamboo connections;
The development of a Quality Assurance Manual and
an inspector in Vietnam to ensure the consistent quality
harvesting and processing of bamboo poles; Fire Resistance
testing of bamboo poles (completed); and Insect Damage
testing.With
the public becoming more sensitive to degradation
of the rain forest in third world countries and the
diminishing forest reserve in our own country, there
is more interest in experimenting with bamboo as a
wood substitute.
There
is also effort underway to have the Uniform Building
Code modified to include bamboo structural components.
This could eventually lead to acceptance in some form
of bamboo in the "round" and "engineered"
bamboo structural components in the rapidly expanding
use of "engineered" lumber.
Resources
for learning more about Bamboo in Hawaii:
Hawaii
Chapter American Bamboo Society
Bamboo
Homes and Bamboo Products:
BambooHardwoods.com
Seattle, Washington
Bambooworks.com
Kauai, Hawaii
BigBamboomaui.com
Maui, Hawaii
BambooMaui.com
Maui, Hawaii
Bamboo
Hawaii Oahu, Hawaii
Basically
Bamboo.
Bamboo
Treatments and Finishes:
Microbeshield.com
Novaguard.com
Bamboo
Vacation Rentals using bamboo construction and products:
MauiRetreat.com
Maui,Hawaii
Retreat
Maui.com Maui ,Hawaii
Other
sites relevant to Bamboo:
International
Bamboo FoundationInternational
Conference of Building Officials (ICBO)
International
Network for Bamboo and Rattan(INBAR)
Examples
of Bamboo construction/other countries:
Vietnam
Tourisim.com/muine Vietnam
Safari
Thatch.com
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