Estudio Damgo - Week 8

This week we took the Estudio Damgo team to the Bamboo Foundation of the Philippines where we learned how to assemble the bamboo trusses.  The Bamboo Foundation, located in Dauin, is a sustainable program to teach Filipinos how to grow and harvest bamboo.  They also show techniques on preserving and treating the bamboo for longevity, and they demonstrate the variety of ways to work with different species.  Estudio Damgo is using two different species; tinik and butong.  We're using tinik for the truss and it will be made into  exterior wall screens, called skeleton bamboo screening.  To make the screen, the tinik is cut longitudinally along the grain keeping and revealing the node connections.  This portion of the bamboo is then installed and secured at the top and bottom in a bamboo frame.  The half round bamboo sections left over from the skeleton screen will be assembled and installed as exterior corrugated panels.  The butong bamboo species is larger and more straight and is used for the columns.

The finished bamboo truss mock-up.  Photo by Ray Villanueva.