Bamboo ... a possible housing material for Haiti

Dear Colleagues

I have not studied the engineering in detail, but the ideas expressed in this are interesting and seem well worth further analysis.

http://www.co2bambu.com/LowCostHousing.php

This is from the website:

Housing Deficit
Central America and the Caribbean have a massive deficit of housing for poor families. In Nicaragua, there is a deficit of 500,000 homes, and in post-disaster Haïti, the shortfall has exploded to 1.2 million homes.

Bamboo: An Ideal Housing Material
Guadua bamboo, a species that grows natively in many Central American regions, provides an important alternative to traditional house construction materials. The unique characteristics of Guadua lend themselves particularly well to conventional processing techniques such as nailing, gluing, and finishing.

Bamboo is wonderfully strong and flexible and therefore ideal for countries that experience earthquakes and hurricanes. Based on naturally occurring air pocket nodes, with proper design, bamboo structures can also provide natural insulation from cool and hot temperatures. Equally important, the material offers a significantly lower carbon footprint versus traditional building materials such as wood, cement and steel.

Low cost housing that uses local materials has some of the characteristics that are required for sustainable development. I would be interested in learning more about this from people with practical experience of the methods.

Peter Burgess