Bamboo
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Ever since the 1890s, cricket bats have been made of willow wood. According to a new study, however, bamboo bats should offer better performance and a lower environmental footprint, plus they could make the sport more accessible to poor countries.
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Realrich Architecture Workshop made use of plastic, bamboo, and stone to create a remarkable three-story family home in Indonesia. The project also features a series of additional outbuildings, including one planned for use as a school.
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VTN Architects has been experimenting with bamboo for some time and has now produced its most ambitious bamboo-based work to date. The Vedana Restaurant rises to a height of 18 m (60 ft) and features a complex structure topped by an impressive roof.
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Beyond Survival: A Safe Space for Rohingya Women and Girls provides a much-needed community center for refugees in Bangladesh. The building was designed by Rizvi Hassan and is made from inexpensive locally-sourced materials like bamboo and straw.
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Balinese architecture firm Ibuku continues to build out its impressive portfolio of incredible bamboo hotels, with the completion of a new riverside retreat near Ubud. Named River Bend, it appears like a pair of golden snails tucked in alongside a winding river.
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A group of green motoring enthusiasts in the Phillipines has built a neat little electric motorcycle to demonstrate what can be done with bamboo. The Green Falcon won't break any speed records, but its marine-lacquered bamboo bodywork is highly sustainable and very cool.
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Foster + Partners recently unveiled its latest Apple store. Located in Macau, China, the building is intended to resemble an oversized paper lantern and features an upper facade made from a "first-of-its-kind" glass/stone composite that the firm likens to stained glass.
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Exotic hardwoods are getting harder to come by and tighter tonewood regulations are having an impact on guitar making. France's Alquier Guitars is going all out for its Cosmic builds, turning away from tropical wood, making use of sustainable bamboo and breaking out titanium hardware.
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Back when we visited the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in 2015, Lance Rake showed us an e-bike he made from a blend of woven bamboo, carbon fiber and balsa wood. At this year's show, he was back with a bamboo bike that's designed to be easy for Indian entrepreneurs to build.
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Throughout the year, we've chased down the most interesting, innovative and sustainable buildings around the globe. Whether a Lego-shaped visitor's center, a bamboo sports hall, or a pair of "dancing" skyscrapers, each represents architectural excellence. Read on for our best buildings of 2017.
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Some impressive examples of bamboo construction can be found in the Asian tropics, including the latest handiwork of Chiangmai Life Architects which has used the sustainable and cheap material to craft a school sports hall in the mountains of Thailand.
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Bamboo is one of the world's strongest natural materials, and it also grows at a rate of up to three feet (0.9 m) a day, making it a much more sustainable resource than wood. Now, engineers at the Ford Motor Company are looking at using it to make car parts.
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