Thursday, February 21, 2013

SAIE México 2013


Lamboo, Inc. is pleased to announce they will be attending the sixth Annual SAIE Mexico 2013 Show and Conference. The show is put on by the International Building Trade Show or SAIE (SAIE by its Spanish Acronym – Salon Internacional de la Edicacion) and will take place on February 20-23, 2013 in the WTC Mexico City, Mexico.

The VI International Exhibition Building, SAIE MEXICO 2013, is a exhibition where technological advances in the industry are shared and networking opportunities between professionals and companies, in architecture, construction, design and sustainable lifestyle are present. This show is the most important trade show for housing, construction, and green building sectors in the Mexican market. The four-day event features over 140 exhibitors and more than 8,000 visitors during the 2013 show. SAIE is the leading trade show for green construction, sustainable building, and construction includes green design, low VOC products, paints, recovered materials, full solar and photovoltaic systems, wind power, lighting, and related products.

Lamboo, Inc. will be exhibiting at the show to promote green construction and sustainable building through the manufacturing of engineered bamboo for structural, architectural, and industrial applications. At the SAIE Show, Lamboo will be promoting the following product lines: Lamboo® Design™, Lamboo® Elements™, Lamboo® Renewall™, Lamboo® Structure™, Lamboo® Surface™, and Lamboo® Vue™.

As a technology, and manufacturing company, Lamboo, Inc. offers enhanced performance over traditional forms of construction material to the environment, the construction industry, and architects/engineers throughout the world. Representatives of Lamboo, Inc. can be found at the State of Illinois Pavilion, booth B38. Lamboo’s partner Multivi will also be in attendance showcasing in booth C28. As industry leaders they are integrating superior performing Lamboo (laminated veneer bamboo) within their window, door, and curtain wall systems providing some of the most stable, sustainable, and long lasting systems available to the market.


Multivi Windows & Doors 
Booth #C28 
Marco Perez Haces 
Tel: +01 (222) 2 403 300 

For questions regarding Lamboo or our products please visit our website
at www.lamboo.us or contact us at info@lamboo.us 866-966-2999

“MAKING INNOVATIVE THINKING A STANDARD” – Lamboo Incorporated





Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Can bamboo tackle environmental and poverty concerns?

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Bamboo, considered to be the world's fastest-growing woody plant, could be a key component in lifting thousands of people in the developing world out of poverty.

According to the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), as many as 1.5 billion people currently "depend in some way on bamboo and rattan," and several organizations are now investigating how growing bamboo in economically deprived areas can boost the income of the residents, particularly small-scale farmers.

One of them is Hanoi, Vietnam-based Prosperity Initiative (PI). Many people can escape poverty by increasing bamboo production in rural areas and by linking local communities with domestic and foreign buyers, the non-governmental organization believes.

PI aims to bolster the Mekong region's bamboo industry sufficiently enough to bring 750,000 people out of poverty by 2020. It sounds a tall order, but Tim de Mestre, head of Prosperity Initiative's Mekong bamboo program, believes it is "both realistic and achievable."

"Income poverty can only be solved by sustainably increasing household incomes," de Mestre said. "The poor have two assets they can use to do this: their land, to grow commodities, and their labor."

China currently produces 80 percent of the world's bamboo and consumes 60 percent of it, according to PI. Smaller and poorer bamboo-producing countries such as Vietnam are in a prime position to "out-compete China" by supplying industries with raw materials at lower prices, De Mestre said.

But why would growing bamboo increase income levels any more than any other type of crop? Its advantage, proponents say, is its versatility and how quickly it can grow.

Bamboo is a genuinely renewable resource which grows extremely fast, is incredibly strong and has a vast number of practical uses -- particularly in the building industry.

Around 1 billion people live in bamboo houses, according to INBAR. Deforestation of tropical forests and illegal logging will also make people search for more sustainable alternatives in the future, such as bamboo.

PI's strategy is to refocus the bamboo industry on "higher-value products": That is, to concentrate on producing larger items, such as flooring, furniture or building materials.

Such a tactic could drive up the value of bamboo in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, benefiting small-bamboo farmers, as well as those finding employment in the bamboo production industry.

PI says its model is already working in Vietnam, and claims bamboo price increases from 2005-2007 have already been responsible for lifting 20,000 Vietnamese out of poverty. The price of Chinese bamboo has also been boosted in recent months by the strengthening yuan.

News like that will be welcome for poor bamboo farmers as the numbers for industrial bamboo products such as flooring are particularly appealing for them, de Mestre said.

"Typically 60 percent of the sector's output value is raw material cost."

That means for every $1 million worth of bamboo products produced, $600,000 of it goes to the farmers growing the raw bamboo, he said.

The global bamboo industry is currently worth around $11 billion per year and is tipped to reach $15-$20 billion per year by 2018, according to PI. The market for industrial bamboo products is currently only valued at around $500 million a year, but PI estimates it could grow to $4 -5 billion in the next 10 years.

For the bamboo industry to thrive, however, it needs to find large export markets.

Currently, demand for Vietnamese bamboo products is domestic-driven. That may take some time, said Darrel DeBoer, a California-based architect who is one of the biggest proponents of bamboo usage in buildings and structures in the United States.

"It's definitely a different way of thinking than most people are accustomed to here," DeBoer said. From an environmental-friendly perspective, bamboo homes are attractive, said DeBoer, but not enough people in the United States are aware of the option.

"The building industry is very slow to change and you kind of have to drag them along," he said. "We are at the very early phase of basically letting people know that it is possible."

(Read More)

(Excerpt of article by Rachel Oliver of CNN. NOT AFFILIATED WITH LAMBOO)

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 More key benefits of bamboo

  • Produces 30% more oxygen and sequesters 35% more carbon than a like sized timber forest area.
  • Growth rate of 6-8 years to maturity (compared to timber 25-50).
  • Root structure that eliminates the need for replanting bamboo

Advantages of Lamboo Structural grade materials –

  • On average 20% more stable than hardwoods and up to 40% more stable than softwoods such as pine or Douglas Fir.
  • 10 times stronger than wood in tension and 3 times stronger mechanically.
  • Our manufacturing processes use 15% less embodied energy than that of engineered wood, and 300% less embodied energy than aluminum and steel.
  • Resistance to pests and termites (engineered process and high silica content).
  • Resistance to mold and fungi cultivation.
  • Low V.O.C. adhesives, no off-gassing when sanding, profiling, and handling materials.

LEED Credits available through Lamboo integration

Incorporating Lamboo (LVB) Laminated Veneer Bamboo into projects can earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification under the following:
  • MR Credit 6 - Rapidly renewable materials
  • IEQ Credit 4.4 - Low-emitting materials
  • ID Credit 1 - Innovation in Design
    (Environmentally Preferable Material)
  • ID Credit 2 - Innovation in Design
    (Life Cycle Assessment / Environmental Impact)
  • FSC Certification - Available Upon Request
Learn more about our certifications here.

For questions regarding Lamboo or our products please visit our website
at www.lamboo.us or contact us at info@lamboo.us 866-966-2999

“MAKING INNOVATIVE THINKING A STANDARD” – Lamboo Incorporated




Thursday, February 7, 2013

Spanning The Globe: Bamboo Bridges Are On The Rise



In a country where steel and cement dominant the bridges and building, Australian company Bambuco showed the English a new way of thinking when they installed a temporary bamboo footbridge over the river Tyne in 2007. The bridge itself was a temporary outdoor sculpture designed and built for the SummerTyne festival to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Tyne Bridge. Spanning 390 feet across the Tyne River, the impressive sight was at a slight angle across the river to really stand out and was built entirely from 20 tons of bamboo split into 80 pieces. The bridge stood for three days and there was even a spectacular light display to mark the occasion.

While the bridge itself was not open to foot or vehicular traffic, perhaps the Brits could take a lesson from China where bamboo is a common and popular building material. Because of its high tensile strength and ready availability, bamboo is used for construction ranging from houses to scaffolding to bridges.

Most recently a bamboo bridge was built in the Hunan Province as part of a series of projects from Yan Xiao who has been developing designs for foot-bridges and vehicle bridges made from bamboo. Xiao is a native of China who is now a professor at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering and holds an appointment at the College of Civil Engineering of the Hunan University in China. The bridge, built in the remote Leiyang Village, is sturdy enough to hold a fully loaded truck. The span was built within a week by a team of 8 workers without the need for any cumbersome heavy equipment. While it is limited to a 8-ton design, tests on the campus of Hunan University have shown its capacity to hold much higher weights.

An earlier project of Xiaos’ was a high capacity bamboo footbridge that was a featured attraction at a conference organized by Xiao in Changsha, China. Xiao expects his modern bamboo bridge technology to be widely used in pedestrian crossing, large number of bridges in rural areas in China, as a environmental friendly and sustainable construction material.

(Excerpt of article by Stacey Irwin of Green Earth News. NOT AFFILIATED WITH LAMBOO)

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Bamboo has long been touted for its remarkable strength and durability. It has been used in certain parts of the world for centuries. Bamboo often gets a unfair label of being the "poor man's timber" however, this could not be farther from the truth. With performance attributes far exceeding any other bio-based material, added with its rapid regrowth cycle, bamboo will become the building material of the future.

Many sources, including this article, have been reporting that there is extensive research being carried out to utilize bamboo in structural applications. Some of these sources claim that vulnerabilities, such as deterioration from environmental and pest damage, are holding back its spread in the building industry. This, too, is an incorrect assertion. The fact of the matter is that although in raw form, bamboo has a few weaknesses; in its engineered form, these shortcomings can be completely removed and actually become some of the most impressive features of the material.

This material, of course, is Laminated Veneer Bamboo (LVB) or Lamboo as it is commonly known. Many news organizations report that the development of bamboo is in its early stages, and that much of the technology does not exist to create a viable exterior grade bamboo product. This, as well, is a incorrect assumption as it is currently being produced by our organization and used throughout the world for a number of applications.

For information regarding Lamboo (research) and (certifications) please follow the provided links.


For questions regarding Lamboo or our products please visit our website
at www.lamboo.us or contact us at info@lamboo.us  866-966-2999 

“MAKING INNOVATIVE THINKING A STANDARD” – Lamboo Incorporated



Blog by: Dustin Dennison