INTEGER Bamboo House

INTEGER Bamboo House is an action research programme aimed at developing a sustainable housing and lifestyle model appropriate for the urbanization of the western regions of China. The Bamboo House is part of the INTEGER Kunming Project, located on a naturally vegetated site adjacent to the current International Horticultural Expo, on the north-eastern fringes of Kunming City.

The Integer partnership carried out a 3-year action-research and technology transfer project with scientists and engineers from local academic institutions, including Kunming University of Science and Technology, to establish how to advance reconstituted bamboo as a workable building product. Researchers at the Kunming University of Science and Technology tested reconstituted bamboo samples to destruction under tension, compression, buckling forces, etc.  and found that it performed no worse than timber, and in some cases better.

The Partnership made use of the latest technology to produce reconstituted bamboo poles of 2(inches) by 4(inches) sections to build the first two storey reconstituted bamboo house in the world. The construction of the house was based on a platform frame ( similar to balloon frame), common in Australia and North America. The engineers sized the structural members of the house and designed the connections based on the Canadian Code of Practice for Timber Housing. Bamboo cladding is based on a rain screen system of sandwich panels which provide very high levels of thermal insulation. 

The potential application of this technology is significant. It can provide an affordable, low carbon and safe way of building for new townships and villages housing, generating economic opportunities for local communities.