Nonconventional Materials and Technologies

Here is one of our very talented IRES students presenting on her team's gridshell design at the 3rd annual PUC-Rio and University of Pittsburgh Workshop on NonConventional Materials. It was a long day full of bamboo research- and there's actually quite a lot of it, though most focused on material properties. There's over 1000 species of bamboo (which is a type of grass), and many types have been used structurally by indigenous populations for millennia.

Bamboo appears to be a rapidly renewable, more sustainable option for structural and aesthetic design, however, there needs to be a lot of research yet on proper treatment, material limitations, and marketing. Structural bamboo is considered a "lower class" type of thing. Anyway, this workshop was attended by researchers from Brazil, the US, Belgium, Russia, and I think Columbia, and they showed their work with structural testing, gridshell and shelter design, bamboo environmental analysis, marketing potential in Brazil, and even a really sweet bicycle design (complete with miniature prototype!)

At the end of the day, I presented on my research- healthcare sustainability. I didn't mention bamboo at all, but they all still seemed interested. I was very impressed by the questions PUC PhD student João Krause posed at the end of each session- he will make a very great professor (just as our IRES kiddoes will make very good grad students ;) I have other thoughts on that too, but perhaps I will quit here for the night). After the workshop the IRES loaded their bamboo gridshell until the zip-tied joints binding the structure failed. They're time here in Brazil has resulted in some data! We celebrated at a sushi rodízio close-by. It's essentially all you can eat sushi for about $30US. Needless to say, I'm stuffed.