Bamboo is an evergreen plant native to Asia and the Americas that grows at any altitude, even in less than optimal climatic conditions. It is a highly resilient natural resource and, thanks to its capacity to capture forty times more carbon dioxide than a forest of the same size, it also offers numerous environmental benefits.

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Its particular ability to regenerate spontaneously every time it is cut makes bamboo a plant that lends itself well to numerous uses: from cooking to the clothing industry for the production of fabrics, but above all to the world of construction, where it is used to build buildings with a very low environmental impact.

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Using bamboo in construction actually guarantees greater performance — in terms of strength, tension and compression — than traditional materials such as wood, steel and concrete. The only drawback that arises from using this resource comes from insects that feed on the woody substance contained within its stem; to resolve the problem, it is therefore necessary to treat the plant with boron salts, whose action interferes with the metabolic system of the parasites by making the taste of the lignin unpleasant.

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The construction of houses from bamboo canes is practised mainly in the East, while in the West this plant is used in its natural state primarily in design and furnishing elements, or is processed and transformed into a new material ideal for cladding and flooring: WPC (Wood Plastic Composite), a resilient compound obtained by combining bamboo with special plastics that are strictly recycled and reusable for future applications.

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Bamboo represents a major resource for green building: thanks to its rapid life cycle, which requires three to five years to regenerate — whereas any other shrub takes at least fifteen — it is better suited to a construction market that is increasingly focused on protecting the planet.

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