Pushing bamboo for safer, greener, cheaper homes

Columbian engineer Luis Felipe Lopez is helping innovate home-building in the Philippines through the use of engineered bamboo for affordable, earthquake-and-typhoon-safe, and environment-friendly houses.

"The Philippines is a big laboratory. You have many volcanoes, landslides and other natural disasters," Lopez told members of the Rotary Club of Makati during their weekly meeting at the Peninsula Manila last week.

As head of product development of the Base Bahay Foundation Inc., Lopez aims to provide bungalow and two-story homes for poor Filipinos in Metro Manila and the provinces, while teaching them about bamboo engineering so that they can gain extra income.

"You have a lot of hectares of bamboo but they are not well managed. People also do not know much about how to treat and process bamboo," he said.

Abundant

"In the Philippines, you don't have wood or commercial forests people can use like in Europe. But bamboo is among the most abundant on Earth," Lopez pointed out.

Through research and technology, Lopez said Columbian engineers have designed bamboos that are sturdier and resistant to insect infestation and damage from severe temperatures.

"There's a misconception in the Philippines that bamboo is a temporary material used only in bahay kubo (nipa hut). They fly during typhoons and are eaten by insects," he said.

Durable material

In actuality, Lopez stressed, "bamboo is a durable material with the right technology."

He said bamboo can also be mixed with cement to replace steel for support and can be bent into curvier designs for more aesthetic appeal.

Base Bahay Foundation was established in 2014 by the Hilti Foundation as a socially-oriented non-profit. Utilizing local, renewable raw materials to build sustainable and resilient housing, the Foundation is a pioneer in bamboo construction, particularly advocating the use of cement-bamboo frame technology — a patented combination of bamboo housing and conventional technology, for a solid, durable structure.

The Accreditation of Innovative Technologies for Housing — accredited cement-bamboo frame technology combines local tradition and innovation with Latin American and European engineering.

Since its creation in 2014, Base Bahay Foundation Inc. has built over 1,200 bamboo homes in 15 communities in the Philippines.

Typhoon-tested in Albay

To test the bamboo's durability, Lopez said the Foundation put up bamboo homes in Albay and waited for a typhoon. He said the homes remained intact despite the weather disturbance.

Albay is among the typhoon-prone areas in the country, with the strong typhoon "Rolly" packing wind speed of up to 225 kilometers per hour in 2020.

The Philippines is more often hit by typhoons compared with the rest of the world, with an average of 20 typhoons each year, data from the country's weather bureau show.

Surviving 7.3-magnitude earthquakes

In times of earthquake, the Columbian engineer said bamboo houses can survive tremors up to 7.3 magnitude.

"That was the strength of an earthquake in Kobe, Japan in 1995. We simulated that earthquake and had to test the bamboo house seven times to see a crack in the wall," Lopez recalled.

He said Base Bahay Foundation Inc. has built six bamboo processing facilities in the Philippines to train Filipino farmers on producing engineered bamboo.

Compared to traditional homes made of cement and steel, a bamboo house costs cheaper at P10,000 per square meter, Lopez said.

Moving forward, Lopez said his team in the foundation's office in Makati are looking to further work with the Philippine government to create building regulations on bamboo houses to make these structures more popular for the global campaign against climate change.

"It's a loop. When there are no regulations, there's no research.  When engineers don't know how to use bamboo, there's no demand," he explained.

"When we use bamboo, we reduce our carbon footprint by 60 percent," Lopez added.