Raghunandan Tr The National
Bamboo Mission has plenty of very useful material on growing, cutting, treating
and using Bamboo for a variety of purposes. I have all their books in Bangalore
and can send them to you when I return. I myself experimented a lot with Bamboo.
Aditi and I planted a grove in our home, but soon, it grew so luxuriantly that
we had to cut it. The problem was that it broke through into our rainwater
harvesting tank and then outgrew everything. Even though we were sad to see it
go, I learnt a lot about Bamboo and treated the cut stalks in accordance with
the advice of the National Bamboo Mission. I soaked the stalks in tanks of
water with borax and boric powder to preserve it. I used it to construct a
shed, also using techniques of jointing recommended by the NBM. The stalks were
as good as new, twenty years later.
The roofing material that you speak of is made in Hosur. There is also a research station somewhere in Bangalore, near Peenya if I remember. The roofing material is made by sandwiching bamboo mats in fibreglass resin. In other words, the glass fibre used for fibreglass is replaced by Bamboo.
You can also build lovely walls with Bamboo and mud. The bamboo is split and beaten flat. Then it is woven in a basket weave. After that, it is plastered with mud inside and outside. It makes for a light, beautiful wall, particularly when it is painted with Chunam. All the houses in villages in the plains of Assam are built like this, and mounted on stilts. They never get spoilt in the floods, if one ensures that the roof overhangs enough to prevent water from splashing on them.
On our museum land in Avani village, Kolar, we have planted clumps of Bamboo. It has taken some time for these clumps to develop, because of the drought. But this year, they might take off. I am looking forward to planting more Bamboo, so that we can harvest it and use it for some of the museum buildings. A combination of traditional bamboo construction techniques and a few modern techniques, can work wonders. It is a wonderful material.
The roofing material that you speak of is made in Hosur. There is also a research station somewhere in Bangalore, near Peenya if I remember. The roofing material is made by sandwiching bamboo mats in fibreglass resin. In other words, the glass fibre used for fibreglass is replaced by Bamboo.
You can also build lovely walls with Bamboo and mud. The bamboo is split and beaten flat. Then it is woven in a basket weave. After that, it is plastered with mud inside and outside. It makes for a light, beautiful wall, particularly when it is painted with Chunam. All the houses in villages in the plains of Assam are built like this, and mounted on stilts. They never get spoilt in the floods, if one ensures that the roof overhangs enough to prevent water from splashing on them.
On our museum land in Avani village, Kolar, we have planted clumps of Bamboo. It has taken some time for these clumps to develop, because of the drought. But this year, they might take off. I am looking forward to planting more Bamboo, so that we can harvest it and use it for some of the museum buildings. A combination of traditional bamboo construction techniques and a few modern techniques, can work wonders. It is a wonderful material.
Aparna Krishnan Yes, bamboo needs
to re-enter lives. And yes, today we need a mix of traditional and modern.
Traditionally in our areas bamboo was cut in the dark phase of the moon, and
then soaked in the full (in those times !) tanks for a month, with heavy
stones placed on them, and then used in roofing. Those weathered bamboos stand
forever in old houses. Now we have only bone dry tanks, and need borax. The
sheer aesthetics of these homes with bamboo roofs is something else. Ours was
till two years ago, and then we succumbed to modernity. We have thick mud walls
in our village, but I have seen bamboo walls in Narmada. What sheer beauty and
comfort urban people have lost in moving to steel and concrete, they have no
idea of.
Raghunandan Tr Soaking in water
is essential to leach out the sugar content, which attracts borers. Borax
ensures that further insect attacks don't happen. So a combination of water
soaking and borax (which is dissolved in the water), is a good blend of
traditional and modern approaches.
Aparna Krishnan But the switch to
steel and concrete is at a deep level of aspiration. And that is very very hard
to counter. And as a result there are sociological realities like the thatcher
community losing respect and value and cliente. And so with the extant
thatchers growing old, thatching gets harder and harder to commission. From a
beautiful bamboo thatch roof for 15 years which kept us cool in summers and
warm in winters, we now bake and freeze under a metal roof. Since the last two
years. Our neighbours are very approving of the change in roof incidentally !
Thatching is expensive, and unless well done, what needs to last for 30 years,
lasts for 3. We burnt our fingers with our last re-thatching !
Sridhar Lakshmanan Raghunandan Tr pls try modified boucherie
method I can send some links it can be easily fabricated
Abari
is a socially and environmentally committed research,design and construction
firm that…
ABARI.ORG
Sridhar Lakshmanan Raghunandan Tr https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=65rI5CuKaAU
Is more self explanatory
Is more self explanatory
YOUTUBE.COM
Raghunandan Tr Aparna,
Hunnarshala in Kutch is helping to conserve and improve thatching skills. They
have supported a cooperative of women experts in thatch. Their work is
brilliant. The beauty about thick thatch, used in the Hunnarshala office as a
demo, is that the roof is home to many sparrows who nest in it. Imagine working
in an office with real birdsong, instead of piped music!
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