Bamboo offers a surprisingly large number of applications and uses. It can be used as a building material within architecture and construction.
Bamboo houses are skeletal buildings with a raised floor. Structural safety is provided almost exclusively by posts which are anchored in the ground.
This way of construction offers the following advantages: pre-fabrication, simple assembly, simple replacement of structural parts; the bamboo elements can be easily dismantled and reused.
Above all, the structure must be able to withstand dynamic loads, for example wind gusts. The building materials as well as the structure have a high elasticity and low mass. This is the reason, why this houses are secure from an earthquake.
The simplest roof covering is formed by bamboo shingles which are as long as the rafters. They are halved in diameter and threaded to the ridge in Roman tile fashion. They are held in position by their own weight.
Another roofing method is composed of double layers. The multi-layer shingle roofing is the most expensive and heaviest type of roofing.
Lancet shingle roofing is also expensive. The shingles are placed with their concave side upwards. Because of the better drainage the shingle should contain no nodes outside the batten area.
Because of the favourable relationship between load-bearing capacity and weight, bamboo can be used for the construction of scaffoldings even for very tall buildings.
Bamboo can be applied to many other areas of construction as well such as various forms of bridges.
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