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We loved meeting the Bamboo U team and students during a recent trip to Bali to learn about bio-architecture with bamboo. Bamboo U, part of The Green School family, offer bamboo design-and-build courses every quarter, where anyone with a passion for learning about natural design and building with bamboo can learn in an applied way, under the guidance of Balinese master-builders. Students are guided to make their own designs as well as 3D models of their designs before having the chance to build them to scale together.
Did you know that bamboo has a higher compressive strength than wood, brick or concrete and that the tensile strength of bamboo is comparable with the tensile strength of steel? Bamboo has been used as a building material across Asia for centuries and it is common to see bamboo used as scaffolding in Bali for new multi-storey buildings.
We met with the Bamboo U team at The Kul Kul Farm, a stunning permaculture farm in The Green School family, where volunteer Arturo was busy planting a syntropic food forest, inspired by the teachings of Ernst Götsch. The Kul Kul farm provide introductory permaculture courses on a regular basis and work with the Green School to provide Permaculture Design Courses.
Bali is full of stunning examples of bio-architecture with bamboo, as talented designers and architects work with local craftsmen to create unique biophilic structures in harmony with the surrounding nature. The bamboo structures at The Kul Kul Farm, The Green Camp and The Green School are perfect examples of natural buildings that feel amazing to spend time in, and this feeling optimises the learning experience. A great demonstration of the positive influence of biophilic design on education and feelings of well-being, and of course lots of inspiration brewing for the design of the future Green Living Lab location! 💚
Kassoumay! It was a wonderful experience to lead a permaculture workshop for Jamooral, an association of women in the town of Kafountine in Senegal who want to grow food together. On the invitation of local foundation Kakolum, working to assist the women to create stable livelihoods, Aveen from the Green Living Lab team informed the group about life in the soil , the soil food web , & the importance of biodiversity above & below the soil to build healthy living systems.
Translating from Spanish to the local Wolof language, Maria & Toni from the Kakolum team helped Aveen to relay natural pest control strategies including companion planting & the concept of vertical hot composting. The women will now build new composting facilities on their land so organic materials that would usually be burned (according to local practice) will be converted to compost instead & used to add fertility to their soil.
