 If you’re getting ready to renovate your home, add an addition, or flip a home, get ready for a fun book that can guide you through the greatest sustainable building material around: bamboo. “Grow Your Own House” by Simon Velez is a great visual and informational guide to bamboo.
In Velez’s book, there are many beautiful photographs of bamboo, both in its natural state and after being crafted into fantastic architecture. Velez, the leading bamboo architect, definitely knows his medium. The book guides the reader through the history of bamboo (bamboo homes existed as far back as 5550 BCE), and has played an important role in invention. Thomas Edison’s first light bulbs had a bamboo filament.
The book also gives interesting horticultural information (some species of bamboo can grow almost four feet in one day) and describes some of the numerous uses of bamboo. Bamboo is a very sustainable building material. It grows so quickly that it regenerates itself almost in the blink of an eye. Bamboo enthusiasts (yes, they exist) celebrate bamboo’s cost-effectiveness, its durability, and its aesthetics. It’s lightweight and can withstand even the most extreme weather, like hurricanes and earthquakes. It’s important to note, too, that bamboo releases a very high level of oxygen and ingests an even higher amount of carbon dioxide, making it a great plant to have around when global warming threatens our future.
This book itself is a great conversation-starter coffee table book, yet it lacks in one profound environmental aspect: the word ‘bamboo’ shows up on every page and the versatility of bamboo is made apparent throughout the book, but it was not made on bamboo paper.
Despite that one flaw, it remains a visually interesting and very timely book, especially when the reader considers the potential for bamboo. Practically anything can be made from bamboo: walls, fences, chairs, tables, plates, cups, utensils, clothing, shoes, blinds, sheets, skateboards, decorative art, sinks, countertops, floors. Scientists are also currently researching the possibility of bamboo as a biofuel.
Although you might completely convert your home to bamboo, it’s a useful material that’s entirely eco-friendly. Bamboo hardwood floors are beautiful, bamboo countertops are easy to clean, resilient, and stunning, and bamboo blinds look like anything but bamboo. A few clever placements of bamboo in your newly renovated home won’t cost you more than traditional materials and you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your renovations didn’t cost you a hefty carbon footprint.
When purchasing bamboo, though, make sure you know where it came from. Some commercial bamboo plantations use a high level of chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), whereas others implement organic agriculture methods. In some parts of the world, where bamboo is a lucrative endeavor, forests are being clear-cut to make way for more bamboo plantations. Make sure the bamboo you buy has a Forest Stewardship Council certification to ensure that the bamboo was sustainably managed and cultivated with a biologically diverse range of plants.
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