Abstract
This paper describes a research study on the structural and constructional properties of bamboo strips used in accordance with manuals to improve the quality of self-building authored by Yona Friedman. To investigate these properties, four full-scale roof structures of different designs were built and tested to find their maximum load, deformation behaviour and failure. Two of these structures were subsequently rebuilt to explore strengthening possibilities that were assessed through further tests, which showed an increase of maximum load. Besides field tests, the bamboo roofs were modelled using finite-element analysis software in order to evaluate the correspondence between experimental and analytical data. The results showed remarkable differences between the actual behaviour of the structures and that obtained from the modelling due to the dimensional unevenness of strips and the imperfect execution of lashed joints, with the latter not always allowed to obtain the ideal hinge bearing condition hypothesised in the analytical model.
Highlights
1.1 Manuals The manuals by Yona Friedman collected under the title Roofs (Friedman, 1991a, 1991b), which are freely downloadable from the Unesco website, were produced by the Centre for the Communication of Scientific Knowledge, founded by Friedman himself in 1982 thanks to the financial support of the United Nations University, with the aim of popularising scientific knowledge for the benefit of the planet’s poor
This paper describes a research study on the structural and constructional properties of bamboo strips used in accordance with manuals to improve the quality of self-building authored by Yona Friedman
1.1 Manuals The manuals by Yona Friedman collected under the title Roofs (Friedman, 1991a, 1991b), which are freely downloadable from the Unesco website, were produced by the Centre for the Communication of Scientific Knowledge, founded by Friedman himself in 1982 thanks to the financial support of the United Nations University, with the aim of popularising scientific knowledge for the benefit of the planet’s poor
Summary
1.1 Manuals The manuals by Yona Friedman collected under the title Roofs (Friedman, 1991a, 1991b), which are freely downloadable from the Unesco website, were produced by the Centre for the Communication of Scientific Knowledge, founded by Friedman himself in 1982 thanks to the financial support of the United Nations University, with the aim of popularising scientific knowledge for the benefit of the planet’s poor. It is worth remarking that similar constructions, albeit not totally novel, detached themselves from most bamboo architecture for being made of strips instead of whole culms, as is common practice in both vernacular and contemporary buildings They seem to compare more appropriately to Downloaded by [] on [08/11/21]. As the effectiveness of hand-made lashes depends on the builders’ skill (so that one cannot obtain the same degree of constraint in each joint), all bearings were assumed as hinges This assumption was due to the fact that it was not possible to estimate the sliding of strips over one another – a phenomenon that occurred during field tests. According to the results of previous observations (see Section 2.3) Both the joints at the base frame and the connections between the strips were improved; in prototypes 1B and 4B, each rod was composed of two bamboo strips
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