BAM! BOO!

The towel I used this morning is made of bamboo, of all things, and it is actually a little too soft.

I have no idea how they accomplished that; the towel seems to have no connection to the stalky plant growing in my backyard.  Another example of the alchemy that is at the heart of the design process by which you really can turn a tree in the forest into a book in the library.

Transformative magic.

Bamboo is really just a kind of grass and therefore rather ordinary.  But it is also one of the most amazing plants on the planet.  In fact, it is so useful that its many applications often strain credulity – the towel is just one case – so that it ought to be the source of the word bamboozled.

For one thing, it is incredibly versatile.  There are over 1,000 species of bamboo in the world, making it uniquely adaptable to many environments from jungles to mountains.  And because it can tolerate extremes of precipitation – from 30-250 inches of annual rainfall – bamboo can thrive where mere mortal plants would surely drown.

It also grows so fast that many varieties of bamboo can be harvested in 3-5 years, not the standard 10-20 years required for most softwoods.  It is for these reasons that tropical dwellers historically planted, grew, and constructed their homes out of bamboo.  In fact, it is an ideal building material…growing to a height of 120 feet in some species, but also round and hollow, making it one of the strongest building materials known, natural or otherwise.  Its tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus a skimpy 23,000 for steel.

Yet bamboo is also flexible.

Throughout the world it has always been an essential structural material in earthquake architecture.   But the uses of bamboo go well beyond its structural advantages.  Easy to cut, carve, and slice, it has also been used to make tools, utensils, rebar, even machine parts.  Its pulp is used to make paper, tiles, briquettes, insulation, and a new form of wall paneling called plyboo.  Its hollow tubes have been used for pipes, drainage, flutes, pots, baskets.  And its growing popularity in landscape design makes it perfect for providing shade, wind break, acoustical barriers, and aesthetic beauty.

For centuries, bamboo has also been used as a medicine in Ayurveda and Chinese practices.  The secretion from bamboo – pulverized, powdered, and hardened – is used to treat asthma, coughs, and even as an aphrodisiac.  In China, ingredients from the root of black bamboo help treat kidney disease.  Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal disease and cancer; the sap is said to reduce fever; bamboo ash cures prickly heat. 

Bamboo also plays a key role in the general health of the planet itself.  Its astonishing growth rate and the fact that it generates more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees, makes it ideal for the re-greening of degraded areas.  Its anti-erosion properties create an effective watershed, stitching the soil together along fragile riverbanks, and preventing soil erosion in deforested areas and in places prone to mud slides.

As if all that were not enough, bamboo is also a major food source; bamboo shoots provide nutrition for millions of people.  In Japan, the antioxidant properties of pulverized bamboo bark prevent bacterial growth and it is used there as a natural food preservative.  Bamboo also provides fodder for animals and food for fish.

Did I mention that it repels insects?

Given all that, it is easy to understand the appeal of bamboo as mystical plant, symbol of strength, flexibility, tenacity, endurance and compromise.  For centuries throughout Asia, it has been an important part of religious ceremonies, art, music, and daily life.  It has been the paper, the brush and the muse for poems and paintings.  The home, the bed, the pillow. 

The towel!

As designers we ought to keep bamboo in mind, as a material if not an inspiration.  Indeed, we might well heed the words of the ancient Chinese poet who said, “We are only what we are.  If we were but bamboo, what could we not achieve?”