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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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
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