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Imagineer invites students across art, design, architecture, engineering and sustainability faculties from West Midlands Combined Universities to form an interdisciplinary team and take part in a unique creative commission for The Imagine Bamboo Summit, Birmingham Festival 2022 (July 1-4th 2022).

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Imagineer invites students across art, design, architecture, engineering and sustainability faculties from West Midlands Combined Universities to form an interdisciplinary team and take part in a unique creative commission for The Imagine Bamboo Summit, Birmingham Festival 2022 (July 1-4th 2022).

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“Bamboo is widely held to be one of the most sustainable materials on the planet. Join us in an epic international adventure bringing together artists, growers and communities with bamboo designers and entrepreneurs from India, Ghana and Bali, to explore what innovative structures and products we can create with this extraordinary material.”

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Imagineer, with independent artistic director Orit Azaz, present an ambitious new public art project: Imagine Bamboo.

Artists, designers, engineers and communities from across the UK, and internationally, are coming together to explore the potential of bamboo - widely held to be the future sustainable building material for the planet.

In 2022 our work includes the Imagine Bamboo Summit, Bridge2Bamboo R&D and Taking Root.

Imagine Bamboo has evolved from Bridge, a major outdoor arts project that took place 2018-2021, which brought together people who wouldn't normally meet.

Imagine Bamboo is proud to be part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival

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Imagineer, with independent artistic director Orit Azaz, present an ambitious new public art project: Imagine Bamboo. Artists, designers, engineers and communities from across the UK, and internationally, are coming together to explore the potential of bamboo - widely held to be the future sustainable building material for the planet.

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“You need to understand what the bamboo wants to be… and build that” Elora Hardy, bamboo architect, IBUKU"

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Sustainable, Slow-designed, Contemporary, Ethically-crafted Furniture

CRAFT

Craft is a biggie for us because we believe it is inherently characterized by reference points that have the potential to counter unsustainability-including slowness, makers, mindfulness, skilfulness, intuitiveness, renewable-materials and self-reliance. We aim to keep craft relevant, dynamic, and sustained by reinterpreting it, and by embracing both traditional and non-traditional makers and their skill-sets.

DESIGN

Design is at the centre of what we do, because it holds the promise of imagining and realizing a better reality. We believe that a collaborative design process-which leverages inputs from everyone who makes up the compound picture-is the way to go about realizing the possibility of a better future. This is why our collaborators span different disciplines, and are not restricted to 'trained' designers.

SUSTAINABILITY

The adjective 'holistic' is implicit in our understanding of sustainability at Rhizome. We go beyond 'eco-design' to also look at all the messy and interlinked pieces of the sustainability jig-saw-including economic, social, cultural and ecological factors. We aim to go beyond an anthropogenic idea of sustainability, to one that looks at the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on the earth forever.

A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model;

it is a 'map and not a tracing'

DELEUZE AND GUATTARI

ABOUT US

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RHIZOME - MULTIDISCIPLINARY SUSTAINABILITY DESIGN STUDIO

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Sustainable, Slow-designed, Contemporary, Ethically-crafted Furniture Craft is a biggie for us because we believe it is inherently characterized by reference points that have the potential to counter unsustainability-including slowness, makers, mindfulness, skilfulness, intuitiveness, renewable-materials and self-reliance. We aim to keep craft relevant, dynamic, and sustained by reinterpreting it, and by embracing both traditional and non-traditional makers and their skill-sets.

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Established in 1989, Atelier One is a British structural engineering company with offices in London and Brighton

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Inspired by your research into these exceptional bamboo specialists and any other bamboo Crafts, Fashion, Makers, Architects and Growers across the world, create a design and model for an installation, product or way of living made from bamboo that either does, or could, grow in the UK.

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You will have the opportunity to explore your ideas in a masterclass with Rebecca Reubens, founder of Rhizome, and attend an in-person workshop with Master Bamboo Carpenter on (date tbc 29/30 June) alongside the student design teams from the other West Midlands Combined Universities.

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Your designs, ideas, products will be showcased during the Imagine Bamboo Summit, 1st – 4th July, at Sunset Park, Birmingham, as part of Birmingham 2022 Festival, alongside an extraordinary large scale bamboo installation designed by BambooU and Atelier One and created onsite with our international partners and local build participants - you can get hands on experience and join any one of those building days.  Sunset Park will also house interactive and intergenerational community model making activities - you can support the community activities alongside UK Artists & designers  including ARUP

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There will be an opportunity to share your ideas in conversation with our national and international partners and receive feedback from some of the most experienced bamboo crafts designers, makers in the world.  Models, ideas and products will need to be completed by Friday 24th June.

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This commission brief is designed by Orit Azaz (Creative Director, Imagine Bamboo) in consultation with our international design partners and the West Midlands Combined Universities.

If you need any further info, want to share ideas or sign up for the Summit opportunities then get in touch:
Amanda Roberts (Associate Producer, Imagine Bamboo) on 07886 599 602 or
email: amanda@imagineerproductions.co.uk

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Produce your concepts and ideas to a finished standard and include designs/images of your process and photoshop images for placed based installation ideas.

Please share & upload design ideas - including processes - and models to your university section of this padlet.

Share your work on line, please tag us @imagineeruk
#ImagineBamboo

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Models/products need to be easily transportable by public transport, bike, car. You can bring these to the creative masterclass with Rebecca Reubens to be held on 29/30 June tba in Birmingham

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UK grown garden bamboo

Bamboo skewers

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We have put together some additional resources to guide you which are available to support your commission which includes:  methods of fixing, shredding bamboo, and tools and processes that will be useful

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Bamboo model making is the art of creating scaled versions of a real-life bamboo structure during the design development stages of a project.

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The following challenges are things you may use to get your creative, design and engineering juices flowing

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The following challenges are things you may use to get your creative, design and engineering juices flowing

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A Tensegrity sphere refers to a stable bar structure in which the bars do not touch each other and are connected only by tension elements.

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Bamboo sticks

Elastic bands

Bamboo paper straws (if you want to practice)

Bamboo lollipop sticks (as an alternative option)

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DartmouthX - The Engineering of Structures Around Us

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How to make a tensegrity structure sculpture

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You could practice using paper straws by cutting a 1.5cm slit at the top and bottom of each straw to thread your elastic bands around

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You could also use 2 bamboo lollipop sticks taped together at each end, with a little gap to allow for the elastic band to be slipped on (like they do here):

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See how many bamboo sticks you can make your structure from. Start with 3 and then 6, as the video suggests, and then do some research or trial and error to see how many more you can build with.

Or see what other Tensegrity shapes can be made

Here are some more useful tutorials to try:

30 strut Tensegrity

Anti gravity table

Tensegrity tower

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Use the template provided in the blog post below to try and recreate the freestanding curved structure

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Use the template provided in the blog post below to try and recreate the freestanding curved structure

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(Note- open in Google Chrome to translate the website directly to English)

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Existen muchas razones por las cuales hacer maquetas de bambú. Desde que nos ayudan a visualizar nuestras ideas hasta ser una guía clave en el proceso de construcción. Sin duda alguna, hacer maquetas de bambú es una de las estrategias más eficaces a la hora de crear una estructura de bambú. Con la maqueta podemos tener una idea más acertada de la integridad estructural ya que estamos utilizando el mismo material que utilizaremos para la construcción, pero no solo eso, sino que también nos ayuda a prevenir desafíos futuros en el proceso de construcción.
Sobre el proyecto
Durante nuestro curso presencial Inmersión con Bambú en diciembre del 2018, construimos un prototipo de una estructura de usos múltiples con la finalidad de que esta estructura pudiera ser utilizada en zonas donde han ocurrido desastres naturales. El prototipo fue concebido por Arief Rabik, director ejecutivo de Environmental Bamboo Foundation en respuesta una iniciativa del gobierno de Indonesia de crear estructuras para el alivio en zonas de desastres luego de que un terremoto azotara la isla indonesia de Lombok en agosto de 2018 y de las inundaciones repentinas que asolaron el distrito de Sigi, Sulawesi central en octubre de 2018.

La estructura debía cumplir varios requerimientos básicos entre los que se encontraban la utilización de latillas de bambú, la creación de una estructura ligera y a la vez segura y que se pudiese construir rápidamente y fácil de replicar.
La maqueta de construcción
Hacer la maqueta de construcción para este proyecto nos ayudó a clarificar el proceso de construcción. Seguimos paso a paso el mismo proceso tanto para la maqueta como para la estructura a tamaño real. Como uno de los requerimientos era que la estructura fuese fácil de replicar, el diseño responde al utilizar marcos que tienen el mismo tamaño y que pueden ser construidos utilizando plantillas guía. Una vez determinamos el tamaño de la estructura (5.7m x 12m y 3.6m de alto), realizamos un dibujo a escala que utilizamos para crear la plantilla.

Paso 1: Crear la plantilla

Luego de reunir los materiales y herramientas para crear maquetas y la forma del arco estuvo determinada, el primer paso fue crear la plantilla y la primera pieza. Para hacer la plantilla simplemente colocamos alfileres de oficina en una base de madera que delimitaban la forma a seguir del arco.

Paso 2: Crear todas las piezas siguiendo la plantillas

Una vez tenemos la primera pieza solo hay que repetir el proceso. Y suena fácil pero todo es una curva de aprendizaje, la primera pieza quizás nos tomó el triple de tiempo que la última pieza. Una vez obtenida la técnica, el proceso se vuelve mucho más simple y más rápido.

Paso 3: Agregar las vigas

Luego de que tuvimos todos los marcos en su sitio (entre marco y marco hay una distancia de 1.75m), los unimos con las vigas y ya podemos ver como la maqueta iba tomando forma

Paso 5. Agregar triangulación

El último paso y uno de los más importantes fue añadir triangulación a nuestra estructura. Básicamente al añadiendo elementos diagonales que abrazaron toda la estructura y la convirtieron en una.

¿Y adivina qué? Si, fue exactamente el mismo proceso que utilizamos para la construcción a tamaño real. Y es que si lo pensamos, una estructura real es básicamente una maqueta a escala real. Si al hacer la maqueta pensamos cómo vamos a traducir estos métodos a la realidad, rápidamente ya nuestros alfileres de oficina se convierten en varillas de metal y nuevos palitos de maquetas que convierten en cañas de bambú. El esfuerzo inicial de crear la plantilla nos ahorra tiempo al establecer un proceso en serie y es un método muy eficiente para construir.

Hacer maquetas es sin duda un arte y requiere práctica. Pero como dicen, la práctica hace al maestro y mientras más maqueta hagas más cómodo te sentirás con el proceso y poco a poco irás descubriendo como el bambú se quiere comportar.

Luego de que ya la maqueta estaba lista la barnizamos y ahora esta es nuestra maqueta de presentación:

Escrito por Leticia García Robles

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CONSTRUCCIÓN DE UNA ESTRUCTURA SENCILLA Y ECONÓMICA DE BAMBÚ

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Existen muchas razones por las cuales hacer maquetas de bambú. Desde que nos ayudan a visualizar nuestras ideas hasta ser una guía clave en el proceso de construcción. Sin duda alguna, hacer maquetas de bambú es una de las estrategias más eficaces a la hora de crear una estructura de bambú.

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The scale of the structure will be 5.7cmx 12cm and 3.6cm high

There is a distance of 1.75cm between each frame

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You will need

Bamboo sticks

Office pins

Strong glue

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Use natural and recycled materials e.g. natural string/rope; bicycle inner tube rubber cut into strips; elastic bands; other natural solutions.