Promoting Sustainable Living through Zero-Carbon Bamboo Building with Active Participation of Marginalized Community

Abstract

Bamboo architecture offers a potential solution to the environmental, economic, and social issues that society is currently confronting. Bamboo as a building material has a very high potential for constructing eco-buildings for sustainable development in Bangladesh. Typically, bamboo is a well-known traditional building material grown on village homesteads. Using bamboo as a local material in building construction will be completely eco-friendly and can cause significant material and transportation cost savings which have been followed for years. At this point, the involvement of communities could be introduced to bamboo architecture by utilizing local resources in a more holistic approach, which includes materials, technologies, necessary knowledge and skill sets, and social capital. This paper presents a rationale for constructing a bamboo building that promotes zero carbon emissions with the active involvement of marginalized communities along with accentuating the use of bamboo in contemporary design, particularly in Bangladesh, to improve social perceptions about bamboo and promote its usage as a building material. Focus group discussion, structure, semi-structured questionnaire survey, and daylong workshop with the construction techniques experts were the primary methodologies for this research. It places emphasis on practicality and efficiency in using community resources, as well as a strategy for sustainable eco-buildings. This is accomplished by utilizing treated bamboo, experimenting with joinery details, knitting, weaving for all infill components, and involving the community in all project phases, from project concept to design to execution. Doing this will increase strong ownership of the built structure and ultimately advance sustainability’s long-term objectives.

Presenters

Emmat Ara Khanam Ema
Lecturer, Architecture, BRAC University, Dhaka zila, Bangladesh

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Participatory Process

KEYWORDS

Bamboo Building, Sustainability, Community Participation, Architecture, Sustainable Material, Eco-building