ASLA Annual Meeting & Expo 2012

Lamboo representatives will be attending the 2012 ASLA annual meeting & expo in Phoenix September 28th – October 1st to showcase the Lamboo® Elements™ product line and answer any questions attendees may have.

Founded in 1899, the American Society of Landscape Architects is the national professional association representing landscape architects. Beginning with 11 original members, ASLA has grown to 15,428 members (as of December 31, 2011). ASLA promotes the profession and advances its practice through advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship. In addition, stewardship of the land has always served a central role in the mission of the ASLA and is an integral element of all outreach.

“The Society's mission is to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.”

The Lamboo® Elements™ series is composed of exterior grade laminated veneer bamboo (LVB) designed for exterior finish and landscape applications. The Elements™ series offers strength, rigidity, and is capable of replacing traditional hardwoods in nearly any application. Lamboo materials in comparison to engineered wood are 20% more stable in climate and temperature changes enabling our products to perform exceptionally in harsh environments and remain functional for much longer than traditional wood products.

Lamboo will be showcasing applications of the material in the landscape market by displaying a trash receptacle and park bench provided by Landmark Studio & Design. Landmark is a Midwest U.S. based company that provides high quality products for educational, residential, commercial, and hospitality markets including parks, resorts and marinas. In partnering with Lamboo, Landmark has made a commitment to sustainability by offering the ultra-renewable resource of Lamboo engineered bamboo within their product lines.

The Lamboo booth will be located at space #1277 near the main food court.

 For additional information about Landmark products available with Lamboo materials please contact:

Chad Schaefer

National Sales Manager

(888) 839-3853 | Toll-Free Office

(262) 257-9301 | Direct Office

(262) 391-4552 | Mobile

chad@landmarkstudio.com

“MAKING INNOVATIVE THINKING A STANDARD” – Lamboo Incorporated

Blog by: Dustin Dennison

Bamboo goes commercial

Jamaica is now set to enter bamboo production on a commercial basis, having gained entry as the 38th member to the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR).
Jamaica already produces furniture and household items from bamboo, much of which is done by informal craft traders, but the new program is meant to devise more hardy and quality products.

The plant grows prolifically throughout Jamaica.

Gladstone Rose, chairman of the Bamboo industry Advisory Committee at the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ), said Thursday that INBAR membership gives Jamaica access to technology transfer models and other documents that the agency can use to guide private companies to develop bamboo prototypes.

The prototypes include bamboo plywood, bamboo tiles, bamboo board, bamboo students chairs and other engineered bamboo products using the most prolific local variety of bamboo, Bambusa vulgaris.

"The team has successfully produced bamboo products prototypes but now seek venture capital to supply already identified markets locally and in the United States of America," Rose told Sunday Business.

The BSJ work is focused initially on Glengoffe, where training sessions using the INBAR material has been under way since April. The workshops will span two years.

INBAR is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in China, comprising countries that have bamboo or rattan resources in quantities that can be commercialized.

Through its network of member countries, organizations and individuals from all continents of the world, INBAR develops and assists in the transfer of appropriate technologies and solutions to benefit the peoples of the world and their environment," said Rose.

"Information on 122 Chinese bamboo and rattan products/process standards have been received which will help the BSJ and bamboo products producers rapidly develop Jamaican standards and ultimately create a modern standards-led bamboo products industry," he said.

The BSJ earlier this year was designated by the Ministry of Industry Investment and Commerce to be the focal point for INBAR in Jamaica.

"The Government of Jamaica recognizes that bamboo is a valuable renewable resource which grows rapidly and therefore is a good substitute source for wood instead of timber, obtained by cutting down trees which takes on average 40 years to grow to maturity," Rose said.

The Bamboo Industry Advisory Committee, which he heads, was set up by the BSJ to oversee the development of pilot projects, studies and product prototypes.

The committee also plans to publish its own guidance documents for use of the new bamboo industry that Jamaica expects to emerge from the INBAR project.

"Such documents will prescribe standards, policies and ethical practices for the industry," Rose said.

The standards-led industry is to be developed over a two-year period. The project incorporates entities such as the state-run Forestry Department and the Jamaica Wood Products and Furniture Association representing private operators.

Rose said bamboo manufactured products will include school furniture, including desks and chairs, while bamboo plywood will be used to make doors, skirting and moldings.

Bamboo was first introduced in Jamaica to strengthen riverbanks. A Forestry Department count in 2000 found that the plant covered more than 44,000 hectares nationwide. Today, Rose says there are 47,000 hectares of bamboo growing wild.

Around 1999-2000, according to the Lewis-Nelson paper, the Forestry Department, backed by private sponsorship, imported and erected a "bamboo-concrete house" using material and technical resources from Costa Rica.

"It generated much interest from a wide variety of persons, groups and institutions, but has not realized the desired effect of utilizing local bamboo for low-cost housing on a large scale," the paper said.

Market leader China has developed its bamboo industry into a US $14-billion enterprise, of which US $2-billion worth of products is exported to the West, according to Rose.

"The value of Jamaican manufacture is minuscule by comparison," said the BSJ executive. "We are trying to create a new industry."

(Read More)

(Excerpt of article by Avia Collinder, of The Gleaner. NOT AFFILIATED WITH LAMBOO) 

Lamboo is a manufacturer of laminated veneer bamboo (LVB) for structural and interior design applications. Lamboo can be utilized in a variety of products and systems from window & door units, curtain wall systems, industrial shipping containers to table tops and yacht interiors. Lamboo materials can be used as a substitute to traditional wood in nearly every application as a rapidly renewable and sustainable alternative. The strength of bamboo has lead to it being referred to as ‘vegetable steel’ with a tensile strength of 28,000 per square inch.

Bamboo has long been revered for its enormous potential as a building product but is only now starting to be fully utilized. That is something very exciting and will play a huge role in the future.

For questions regarding Lamboo, our products, or to schedule an interview 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

Powering Sustainability with the World’s First Bamboo Tender Introducing the LAMBOO Tender R1

A few weeks ago Lamboo announced the design of the world’s first tender incorporating the rapidly renewable resource of bamboo, the Lamboo® Tender R1. With the Monaco Yacht Show 2012 less than two weeks away Lamboo is providing additional details on the design for individuals involved in the maritime industry and those who will be attending the show and would like to discuss the project further.

The Lamboo® Tender R1 is a revolutionary design from Sigmund Yacht Design, a leading yacht and tender design firm which has chosen Lamboo materials not only for the sustainable attributes of bamboo but for its superior performance over traditional forms of hardwood. Also included in the design is a Steyr hybrid turbo diesel engine as well as state of the art navigation, electrical, and LED lighting systems.

“This showcase is a key example of both companies’ commitment to integration of environmentally responsible methods matched with innovative engineering of performance materials into the nautical market” said Luke Schuette, Lamboo Founder/CEO.

The construction of the R1 is being carried out by Cockwells, a pioneer within yacht and tender fabrication specializing in advanced engineering and modern construction techniques.

Executives from all three companies will be in attendance at the 2012 Monaco show and will be available for discussion on the R1 and the integration of sustainable bamboo materials within the maritime industry.

(Read full release on PRWeb)

Lamboo® Tender R1 Brochure

For questions regarding Lamboo, our products, or to schedule an interview 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

In Africa’s Vanishing Forests, the Benefits of Bamboo

In the district of Asosa, the land is thick with bamboo. People plant it and manage the forests. They rely on its soil-grabbing roots to stabilize steep slopes and riverbanks, cutting erosion. They harvest it to burn for fuel, to make into charcoal sticks to sell to city dwellers and to build furniture.

Asosa is not in China, not even in Asia. It is a district in the west of Ethiopia, on the Sudanese border. To many people, bamboo means China. But it’s not just panda food — mountain gorillas in Rwanda also live on bamboo. About 4 percent of Africa’s forest cover is bamboo.

Soon it may be much more. Bamboo may provide a solution to a very serious problem: deforestation. In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of the people cook their meals over wood fires. The very poorest cut down trees for cooking fuel; those slightly less poor buy charcoal made from wood in those same forests. Every year Africa loses forest cover equal to the size of Switzerland. Terence Sunderland, a senior scientist at the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research, said that in southern Africa, even trees that can be used for fine carving, such as ebony and rosewood, are being cut down and made into charcoal.

Deforestation starts a vicious circle of drought and environmental decline. Burning wood releases the carbon stored inside. And deforestation accounts for at least a fifth of all carbon emissions globally. As tree cover vanishes, the land dries out and the soil erodes and becomes barren — a major reason for Ethiopia’s periodic famines.

Hundimo Dedere owns and manages a plantation of African highland bamboo in Southern
Ethiopia that was used as a model for modern bamboo cultivation and management training.

 

 How does bamboo improve on hardwood? Cut down a hardwood tree and it’s gone. It will take several decades for another to grow in its place; it can take a century for a forest to grow back after cutting. But bamboo is a grass, not a tree. Under the right conditions, it can grow a full meter a day — you can literally watch it grow. It is also fast maturing. A new bamboo plant is mature enough to harvest after three to six years, depending on the species. Most important, bamboo is renewable. Unlike hardwood trees, bamboo regrows after harvesting, just as grass regrows after cutting. After it is mature, bamboo can be harvested every single year for the life of the plant.

Bamboo has other advantages. Its roots grab onto soil and hold it fast. Plant bamboo on a steep slope or riverbank and it prevents mudslides and erosion. And bamboo is parsimonious with Africa’s most precious resource: water.

“In Africa you want everything,” said Dr. Chin Ong, a retired professor of environmental science at the University of Nottingham in England, who was formerly a senior scientist at the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi. “You want firewood, you want to reduce erosion, to maintain the water supply, generate cash and employment. Bamboo comes the closest — it gives you the most things.”

In the last five years or so, Ong said, Ethiopia has realized that bamboo is a more profitable and greener solution. INBAR’s program is a four-year project financed by the European Commission and the Common Fund for Commodities, a United Nations organization. The technology comes from China. The project provides bamboo seedlings and trains people to manage bamboo plantations.

Because bamboo requires few nutrients, it can grow in soil inhospitable to other plants — not only does it thrive there, it can reclaim the land so other plants can thrive, too. Its roots leach heavy metals from the soil, hold the soil together and draw water closer to the surface. One example is a project in Allahabad, India, to reclaim land whose topsoil had been depleted by the brick industry. In 1996, an INBAR project planted the land with bamboo. Five years later, villagers could farm the land again. Dust storms — a local scourge — were greatly reduced. The bamboo also helped raise the water table by seven meters. In 2007, the project won the global Alcan Prize for Sustainability.

Bamboo's tensile strength makes it a good construction material, and it is also used for furniture, flooring and textiles, among other things.

In some ways, the challenge in Africa is not to introduce bamboo, but to persuade people and governments that it has commercial uses. “We’ve taken policymakers from Africa to China and India where bamboo used in everyday life — and there’s still very poor adoption,” said Ong.

(Read More)

(Excerpt of article by Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times. NOT AFFILIATED WITH LAMBOO) 

 

  

Lamboo strives to protect and promote this remarkable resource by working with various international organizations to ensure that the bamboo used in our products is sourced from responsibly managed bamboo plantations and nurseries. Additionally all bamboo used for Lamboo products come from a select list of bamboo species that is not used as a food source by wildlife. If you want to learn more about Lamboo’s commitment to sustainability, please contact us here.

For questions regarding Lamboo, our products, or to schedule an interview 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