There’s no ‘I’ in Bamboo
By Tom Higgs.
Materials experiment that developed into a new construction technique in bamboo. Strips of bamboo (the largest machinable section from raw bamboo) are channeled and glued into I-beams these can then be cut and glued or riveted together to make strong, lightweight furniture structures.
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For all its environmental benefits, bamboo’s only apparent weakness it would seem is the limit of the materials dimensions when machined. Because of bamboo’s hollow structure only thin strips can be cut from the poles. This project proposes to use these strips in a different way.
Bamboo is currently made into panels and blocks by butt-jointing and laminating rectangular bamboo strips together. Instead, by using these strips to create I-beams, rigid lightweight structures suitable for furniture can be achieved. This chair requires no expensive tooling, just a few basic jigs with processes minimized by repeating angles throughout the structure. This chair is strong, lightweight, sustainable and promotes the use of bamboo in new ways.
