BIM BAMBOO

Two hundred years of intensive industrialisation in the Global North have allowed a mere 15% of the global population to reach a "Very High Human Development Index" using four times the amount of energy currently consumed by 4 billion people living in countries categorised as Emerging Economies. Currently, steel, cement and aluminium production accounts for almost 20% of all global industrial carbon emissions and surprisingly, bamboo, an abundant, sustainable composite structural hollow section, endemic to all Emergent Economies, has been largely ignored and stigmatised as a temporary, non-engineered, low-quality alternative to steel and concrete. Energy-intensive processes to produce standardised bamboo beams and panels have been recently suggested in line with the current structural design philosophy developed in the last century. However, high quality, sustainable and resilient bamboo structures suitable for the 21st century require a design approach developed for, and not forced upon, a natural structural element like bamboo culms.
The main objective of this research is to develop a Building Information Modelling (BIM) framework for whole bamboo culms to support a new high-tech, low-energy design approach based on managing, as opposed to forcibly eliminating, the inherent variability of a natural structural element. This framework will incorporate the related principles of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) and will rely on modern 3D scanning and digital fabrication technologies.
A technological framework that supports expressive, high-quality designs incorporating a rational use of bamboo culms will help to increase their acceptance as a sustainable and attractive construction material among 4.5 billion people living in Emergent Economies and Least Developed Countries.

The long-term potential beneficiaries of this research are 4.5 billion people living in Emergent Economies and Least Developed Countries where bamboo is endemic. Establishing bamboo culms as a sustainable, reliable and attractive structural element will enable these countries to include this renewable material as part of the solution for local complex problems such as housing shortages, urban slums and rural underdevelopment. In the short-term (24 months), Mexican and Colombian bamboo producers, distributors, designers, academics and NGOs that have shown interest in this new approach, will be the main users trialling the technological framework developed in this research.
The UK, an outward-looking developed economy with a strong service sector and a wealth of technological and strategic expertise, can lead the way in the advancement of a modern, sustainable design approach for this largely untapped natural global resource and capitalise on its vast potential market.