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Case Study 3
From the bamboo grove
by Renu Ramanath
A ‘nature-friendly built environment’ is the motto for Kochi-based architects Jaigopal G Rao and Latha Raman-Jaigopal – who believe in starting from the home turf. Naturally, when they decided to experiment with the application of bamboo as a construction material, the starting point was the premises for Inspiration, their own office.
The construction took place during 2004–05, with no pre-set deadlines. Today, Inspiration’s 2,750 sq ft office in Eroor, a quiet suburb of the port town of Kochi, stands tall with its walls, floors and roof clad in bamboo. Here, bamboo replaces almost 70% of structural steel and cement. It is used in combination with more conventional materials, like reinforced cement concrete (RCC) in columns and ferro-cement beams.
The building has won an award in the ‘Urban Office Buildings’ category at the International Bamboo Building Design Competition at Hawaii in 2007 and a Hudco National Award in the Design Ideas Competition 2004-05.
The two-storeyed building is a framed structure, with RCC columns and ferro-cement beams providing the framework. Panels made by bolting treated bamboo on to frames are used to fill in the frame, forming walls. These panels can be plastered either on one side alone or on both sides. At Inspiration’s office, the panels are plastered only on the inside, giving a ‘green’ look to the exterior and a smooth finish to the interiors.
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The same panels can be used with plastering for the floorboards as well. A normal red-oxide finish is given over the plastering.
The building stands on stilts, over an artificial water body created for rainwater-harvesting that helps to cool the surrounding air. The stilts are used to reduce the chance of dampness seeping in, as well as to protect against attack by rodents and insects.
This office needs no air-conditioning, with the ample cross-ventilation and the presence of bamboo helping to reduce the internal temperature by almost 4–5 degrees compared to the outside. The surrounding water body also helps to cool the air entering the premises.
“Bamboo fits the bill perfectly, in terms of non-energy-intensive material,” points out Raman-Jaigopal. Bamboo harvested from a 60 ha plantation is enough for constructing 1,000 houses per year. If timber is used for the same number of houses, it would eat into 500 ha of forest.
The fastest-growing plant species on earth, bamboo is a high-yielding, renewable material resource. Its natural production (without any chemical intervention) involves no excess energy consumption. No polluting agent need be used in the growth of bamboo, and it absorbs the maximum quantity of CO2 than most other plant species. Even the preservative treatment can be done without toxic or environmentally-hazardous materials.
Its low weight makes bamboo ideal for earthquake-prone zones. Using bamboo can help to reduce the entire dead weight of the building by 1/3rd of a similar building with conventional masonry walls and RCC slabs. Almost 25% of the bamboo needed for the construction was obtained from the site itself. Since this was their first project, all work was done on site – including the cutting and treating of bamboo. Today, however, Inspiration uses pre-fabricated bamboo panels.
Inspiration had already used bamboo quite successfully for non-building but structural uses at many other sites. Bamboo was used as reinforcement for road base, on an area of 6,000 sq m (at Hotel Sarovaram, Ernakulam), and also for 20,000 litre capacity water tank, 14 m x 4 m road culvert and retaining walls (at Chitrakutir, an artists’ village near Mumbai).
For technical support, they sought the guidance of two bamboo experts, K.R. Datye and V.N.Gore, of Geo-Science Services, Mumbai – who have been in mainstream construction for a long time, but have now turned to alternative building materials and structural engineering application of alternative materials.
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