5 Unique Carpentry Projects Built During Bamboo U

Bamboo bicycles are not unusual in the bamboo universe. In fact, there are many places around the world which produce bamboo bikes, including Boobicycles by James Wolf, one of our

Bamboo Online Immersion lecturers. Bamboo is a great material to use for bicycles because of its natural round form as well as its ability to dampen vibrations.

That being said, it is rare that we see some bamboo bicycles being designed for children! And that is precisely what Tommaso, a photographer from Italy, decided to do when he joined our 11-day Build & Design Immersion in August 2018. He designed the tricycle with our Balinese carpenters for his son, who at the time was not even born yet.

The tricycle is a great example of how to use bamboo in different ways, even in one single project. The main frame of the tricycle uses an array of bamboo species, including Dendrocalamus asper, D. asper niger and Gigantochloa apus. But the beautiful detailing is in the way that Tommaso and the team introduced laminated bamboo panels as the wheels. Together, they make the tricycle into a beautiful handcrafted piece of art fit for a baby just learning to take its first steps.

Jana is one of our alumni who attended two Bamboo U courses successively. First, the 11-Day Build & Design Immersion in March 2019 and then the 5-Day Design & Carpentry Course the following month. She was a dedicated participant in the Design & Carpentry Station, working carefully to design beautiful, unique pieces of furniture for her children.

At the time of her participation, Jana had two twin boys who had just turned 3 years old. She dedicated her time at the 5-Day Course to designing a one-of-a-kind dollhouse for her boys to play with. Jana used different species of bamboo to achieve the final design of her project, giving the doll house a lot of personality.

The main trunk of the dollhouse uses Dendrocalamus asper, more commonly known as ‘Bambu Petung’ in Indonesia. She used the nodes of the culm as the floors for the closed “rooms” of her doll house and created various openings for doors and windows using a jigsaw. The triangular structure is completed by two diagonally supporting Thyrsostachys siamensis carved poles to mimic ladders going from one floor to another. The flooring for the outdoor spaces of the house use Dendrocalamus asper splits laid out on a structure of Phyllostachys aurea poles. To complete the structure, Jana added a hat of “alang-alang” grass.

The effect of all these bamboo species and the grass roof working together is mesmerising. The house takes a life of its own, and we can easily imagine the boys playing with it at home.

We offer many different bamboo species during our Bamboo U Courses, but typically, our participants and carpenters tend to use Dendrocalamus asper and Gigantochloa apus for their projects. The reason for this is that they are the strongest giant bamboo species we have in stock, and we use them for every part of our day-to-day construction projects. However, when Rhean came to Bamboo U in June 2019, she saw a lot of potential in using Phyllostachys aurea, commonly named “Bambu Pancing” in Indonesia. Pancing means “to fish” in Bahasa Indonesia and the canes of this species are traditionally used for fishing canes.

Bambu Pancing is not ordinarily used in construction, due to its thin diameter and limited structural strength. However, it is frequently used in decorative elements and in furniture. Bambu Pancing has a distinct yellow hue and very pronounced nodes which make it beautiful in smaller design projects.

Rhean wrote to us about her coffee table to describe her design and creation process:

“I designed and built this coffee table using bamboo pancing (bamboo usually used for fishing rods). The frame is held together with traditional fish-mouth joints, which were hand-carved with a knife and reinforced with pins made out of the same bamboo species. Making this table was a challenging and deeply rewarding experience. And the table’s completion would have been impossible without the guidance of local carpenter, Pak Wahoe, and industrial designer, Scott Vandervoort.

The design process for working with a raw and irregular material like bamboo requires much more patience than when working with engineered or processed forms of material like plywood. Bamboo lacks real straight edges, and this meant that I had to rely on eye-ball estimation, even when realising my designs in their full-scale. Bamboo is also not uniform in strength - so if you drill too close to the nodes, the bamboo will crack. However, adapting to the irregularity of the bamboo pays off ; the result is a product with aesthetic qualities much more beautiful than its manufactured counterparts.

I wanted to make a furniture piece which brought people closer to nature yet still belonged in a contemporary home. There is a built-in shelf which can be used to display books or magazines. I also added a transparent glass table-top, inviting people to appreciate the irregular beauty of the bamboo.”

Derek initially came as a part of a workshop held with Texas Tech University from the USA. The original workshop lasted 3 days, where Derek learned about bamboo treatment, carpentry techniques and model making. 5 months later, he was back at Bamboo U to attend the October 2019 edition of our 11-Day Build & Design Immersion.

The concept behind Derek’s work was to design a sustainable, quick-to-build emergency bed for hospitals and natural disaster relief cases. The elevated bed frame and main structure is made using Gigantochloa atroviolacea built into a simple orthogonal form. This allows for an efficient building process, simply put together using bamboo pins. For the overhead frame, he wove Dendrocalamus asper niger splits together over a structure made using laminated Dendrocalamus asper splits, shaped into an arched tunnel.

The design is dedicated to making a structure that only requires a limited amount of tools and materials, all the while creating something that is easy to carry and comfortable for someone to lie in, as he demonstrates in the second image.