The green and light construction running commentary

Light Structures: Bamboo One

How can someone consult on sustainable building, building light on the land, and the best renewable materials for construction based merely on a theoretical approach?

Although already trained in theories of green building, it was important for us to work on developing these ideas from a practical standpoint. So we did the next thing we could, we built it.

We had to set up a nursery and production space for our vertical garden, native plant production, and mushroom research facility. Attached to this we would need space for our staff to stay with the basic amenities.




We focused on locally available and renewable materials, so wood and bamboo became the building blocks of our first space. At first we started small, working with bamboo and wood frames to see how they would last. This was our staff room.

After we moved our nursery to another, larger location, we were inspired by the local topography and built our wood and bamboo house to honor and mirror the magnificent hills surrounding us.

Bamboo Two

We were smack in the middle of a forty acre property, and with these forest gods looking down on us, we hoped for support from them. Here we built a three room house, based loosely on fibonacci numbers and spirals. Storage, staff room, and ‘the big room’.



























The giant tree was wishful thinking.

The houses would be connected at the floor and roof level, but would be separated by their height above ground(2,3,5 feet respectively) and their internal cubic dimensions.



Due to the openness of the land, we would get breezes through the house, but if we put the walls up, we would only get a breeze below and around the house. So we added a passive venting system into the roof. Based on predominant wind patterns, the vents were made facing north or east, so monsoon winds wouldn’t blow water straight into the vents.

Alternatively, this design also works well for summer, when a slight breeze outside would begin to suck hot air out of the rooms due to the venting structure.

Green clad tree house
 

After having done some interesting work with metal for a project that merged cryptoforestry, art, and landcape architecture, we figured we would be able to work on a metal frame structure due to the longevity of metal structures. We would obviously still work with wood and bamboo, but merge this wood and bamboo onto a metal structure.

We moved again, and this was our opportunity to work on such a structure. One of our old clients had offered us a space on their property for a while, so we brought our entire nursery and green wall production into space. Now we had the design ideas, and the space we were allotted was in the back, away from the house.

This time, we would build a metal structure into the teak trees surrounding us.


The concept, evolving further in 3d space, would at its core, be modelled on a star tetrahedron, but changes would be made to suit the trees we would move into.

 Elevation was on our side so we could build a base piece and then slide it into the trees on a makeshift ramp.

But there was much more to go.








The gopro cameras were set for timelapse footage, but even the stills reveal the work as it continued.

We are yet to set up our accommodation with the internals being made of wood, and the external metal structure cladded with our vertical garden panels, creating green roofs and green walls for the entire structure

This pushes a strange tree/structure merging. Mirrors could help the camouflage, but what would be really cool would be if we could use retroactive projection to completely ‘dissapear’ the building temporarily (or permanently if that be the need!).

Container/ Modular home unit

Toward building green microstructures with a minimal footprint, we worked on concepts using containers

We designed for different modes of work and play, and looked at different configurations that could be useful.

More recently, we have worked on real world integration and use in rapid deployment of such concepts, and found a kitchen/bathroom is the minimal unit.

A 20ft container could work for this. So one was designed for an Oikos sample.

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Additionally space for green walls and green roofs has been allotted, which could be used for gardening, farming, ornamental purposes or wastewater cleansing.