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House of bamboo
Colombian architect Simon Velez is propagating the use of bamboo in modern
buildings
Maitreyee Handique
Published : March 12, 2004
To construct a 46-metre long pedestrian bridge in Bogota last year,
Colombian architect Simon Velez used over 3,000 bamboo poles and covered it
with clay tiles, handcrafted by local workers.
Sometime ago, the Bogota-based architect also constructed a performing stage
for Christopher Blackwell, founder of Island Records and owner of Bob Marley
's song rights, in the sea coast of Ochorios in Jamaica.
The place, a memorial to Marley, was built to provide a new platform to
upcoming reggae musicians. But for Velez, it IS an effort to lend "prestige"
to bamboo in regions where it is abundantly available.
"My aim has been to prove that bamboo is a high-tech material and has great
engineering potential for big roof structures and bridges," he says.
Velez was in India recently to attend the World Bamboo Congress in Delhi. In
all probability, he may return soon to collaborate with the Delhi-based
architect Pradeep Sachdeva to build a bamboo bridge at the capital's Garden
of Five Senses.
>From bagging contracts for building a $1,000 a night eco-lodges in Brazil
to
assisting construction of a 100-room eco hotel in China's Guanzhou province,
Velez's workload makes it seem that bamboo is the new buzzword in building.
However, on the contrary, the architect feels that the importance of bamboo
over concrete has been eroding with time.
"In Colombia, it is every poor man's dream to build a concrete house; they
buy cement instead of food and end up in debt. It takes two generations to
build a house and yet they want to live only in a concrete house," he
observes.
He firmly believes that in poor countries obsessed with concrete and steel,
it is critical to restore bamboo's importance.
Bamboo, Velez points out, is strong and can last for 300 years if used
properly and protected from moisture. Besides, its cost works out to be
three times cheaper than concrete. It also gives employment to skilled
workers.
Clearly, with complex arrangement of bamboo poles and joineries strengthened
with cement and iron vault, Velez is attempting to speak a new language in
affordable architecture.
"But it has to start with the rich and the moneyed first," says Velez who
has built several bamboo mansions in his country. "It's only the rich who
can set an example and it's criminal to experiment with the poor," he adds.
On the outskirts of Bogota, Velez has made 50 bamboo-roofed condominiums for
a plush golf course.
But right beside the course boundary, he secured a contract to complete a
100-house complex for the poor, also with his trademark bamboo roofing from
the local Guadua variety of bamboo. And after receiving a positive response
to the Bogota bridge, he's got similar projects in the Colombian towns of
Medellin and Cali going.
"I'm not a fundamentalist and am not against steel per se. But most of the
steel, even steel bridges, that are imported from North America are
prefabricated and they can be fitted in two days by three workers. Apart
from it being expensive, the bridges I build employ 46 skilled workers so
most of the money spent on the bridge went to the workers," he says.
But it hasn't been easy to propagate the idea of bamboo roofing technology.
While Velez visits American universities with slide shows of his work, it's
tougher to get projects.
And sometimes Velez says he renders his designing services free to expose
the practical application of bamboo as he did for a government environment
building in Pareira, a town of 600,000 people in Colombia.
"Bamboo is a strong material. While its strength is equivalent to steel it
weighs many times less. We need to propagate that we don't need mass
industrialisation but we need to keep poor people occupied and use their
skills," says Velez.