Bamboo is the plant that absorbs the most carbon dioxide during its life cycle, it is ready to be used for construction in about 3 years and grows much faster than any tree species. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency shows that China has already become the predominant source of carbon dioxide, the main global warming emission. The use of bamboo in this context is very current, especially because the site is near to the Forest Sea of Zhejiang, therefore bamboo is a natural resource of Baoxi Longquan. For the structure of the Energy Efficient Bamboo House Studio Cardenas Conscious Design explored new ways of building using bamboo as a construction material. Sustainability for them is not only the use of natural materials such as bamboo but to design appropriate construction solutions. Based on their experience they approached sustainability by:
Designing dry-mounted connections not to weaken bamboo through perforation nor fill it in with concrete, and also to allow the replacement of bamboo poles if needed;
Designing aluminum connections light and easy to assemble in order that the construction can be done by local workers;
Using same length of bamboo poles to achieve standardization and best quality control;
Combining bamboo (vegetable steel) and steel to create an industrialized construction system;
Applying a precise geometry (Golden proportion - Aurea) to achieve standardization of the pieces, best quality control and harmonic visual impact.
# Location Lishui, China
# Area 320.0 m2
# Project Year 2016
# 25% more efficient compared with the usual cooling and heating systems