|
Bamboo Furniture Origin and Information:
Bamboo house are built not by architects, but by the people who
will live in them. They are built by the community that will
live around them. “Folk houses are not the product of any
theory design, but instinct, intuition, common sense and
communal memory. Their form has been defined by climate, site,
purpose, available materials, building technology, historical
experience and world view.”
Because bamboo demands its own craftsman, not all carpenters can
build a bamboo house. A nail hastily placed will splinter the
whole culm, and only experience gives the eye that can pick a
mature reliable bamboo post. And what sort of knowledge is it
that enables a builder to construct a house without a meter
stick and yet cut eloquent proportions on a wonderfully human
scale? The bamboo itself becomes the means measure – the nodes
on a fully-grown bamboo are evenly spaced – and the builder uses
it with an skilled eye and a seasoned hand.
Within the basic traditional structure of the bamboo house the
builder owner is free to innovate, to amend features to fit the
way he or his family lives. He may bring new materials, alter
patterns, modify features, augments, embellish, enhance. Form
follow function, but function follows form as well, and in
constructing the house is always open-ended. A project never
really finished, because when the bamboo gives way or need
changing, parts of the house can be replaced, reworked,
redesigned to accommodate changing needs. It has
been called the ideal house for the tropics, but is the bamboo
house passing away? Not entirely, though the of life for which
the bahay kubo evolved is itself becoming a thing of the
past. A dwindling supply of bamboo has also contributed to its
diminished use as building material.
But true to its nature, the bamboo house is adapting to the
needs of its owners. Screens are
installed in windows to keep out bugs. And researchers and
technicians have developed a board consisting of bamboo
sandwiched in layers of a resin as an alternative to plywood.
Whatever form the new bamboo house
takes, we must hope that the common experience of building and
the communal memory of living will continue to inspire a
dwelling as suitable to the new way of life, as charming and
distinctive, as our bamboo house.
Other Links: bamboo | rattan | stone | wrought iron
|
