Bamboo as a Building Material

Source: "Eco-friendly bamboo, 'vegetal steel,' gains ground" by JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press via The GlobeandMail.com, February 1, 2008.

The building material of choice for the 21st century might just be bamboo. "The relationship to weight and resistance is the best in the world. Anything built with steel, I can do in bamboo faster and just as cheaply," said Colombian architect Simon Velez, who almost single-handedly thrust to the vanguard of design a material previously associated with woven mats and Andean pan pipes.

Velez created the largest bamboo structure ever built: the 55,200-sq. ft. Nomadic Museum, a temporary building that recently debuted in Mexico City and takes up half of the Zocalo plaza.

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