Bamboo Architecture

To me bamboo was just another tree. It looked cool, but then again, lots of things look “cool”. And on this trip there are many such things. So many that it’s both good and bad. How do I feel amazement when I’ve stood before something just as amazing and quite possibly better? I’m not sure. That’s probably why they have the saying: don’t take things for granted. So instead of dwelling on such thought-provoking topics, you can just quote a few straightforward words with the satisfaction that you know it’s true because nothing else comes to mind. That’s pretty much what went down every time I came to that spoiled way of thinking. So now, in the end, I have a years worth of incredible sights and memories, which is the good part of being able to witness one cool thing after another.

 

After I had labeled bamboo as cool, to the lesser extent, I didn’t believe that it could climb its way out and stand among the higher ranking (if I even dare try ranking) of sights. Yet, when I stepped foot on the Green School campus located in central Bali, I definitely remember that sensation prominently known as AWE wrapping itself around me, tugging open my already wide eyelids nearly to the breaking point, stuffing my mouth with a sharp piercing breath that suddenly left me breathless, and covering my ears so the rest of the world was muffled and unimportant. Awe has countlessly taken hold of me before and although we already may be acquainted, I never get a notice to when we might meet again. Nothing. Just a silent presence until I’m mentally attacked. And afterwards it was only me… and bamboo.

 

You can search Green School Bali and see the images yourself. I was looking at them earlier and could almost feel the slight cold warmth of wonderment creeping up to lock hands with me. I had seen bamboo used in plenty of ways, but this surpassed anything I might’ve imagined. Shaping the center of the school is three-stories of thick bamboo crisscrossing in a dizzying pattern. The building is famously named The Heart of School. It is so outrageous and despite the sheer massiveness, it fit perfectly with ease into the background and coalesced with the nature surrounding the area. This stripped away all of my preconceived notions I had about bamboo and while I had never actually made an attempt to deepen my knowledge about it, now I was bursting with all sorts of questions (for starters, bamboo isn’t even a tree ­– it’s a grass?). To see giant buildings made entirely out of that single material was unbelievable and I became quietly infatuated with this whole other world of construction.

 

 

We would then go to three other buildings in Bali, all of which were completely bamboo from head to toe and all of which were unprecedentedly unique, beyond the limitations of our own, my own, perceivings of what’s possible. A chocolate factory, a shared workspace, a restaurant, a school, all reinventing what exactly the standard building should be like. And feel like for that matter.  I’m now looking with new eyes, seeing all it can be and knowing it to be more than what I can see, because bamboo architecture is simply awesome.