Abstract

This article is the start of a new series entitled “Architecture and Love” where we would like to present low-tech architecture, a direction created by architects "who refuse to be closed within the walls of design factories”. Architects who—without trying to imitate anyone, to kiss up to bankers—want to set an example. They refer their exploration to what is alive—man and nature—rather than what is dead, i.e. money and technology. [...] We would like to present artists and the institutions experimenting with low-budget, low-energy, sustainable technologies and materials."
The first article in the series, entitled "Bamboo", points out the underestimated merits of that material.
In the past, the qualities of bamboo determined the form of households and pagodas. Up to this day, bamboo is used for scaffolding on 70-storey buildings in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It can be used for anything from small-scale window shades through bridge structures, to domes and arches spanning up to 30 metres. What is really impressive in these engineering structures is their durability combined with flexibility. The images of Asiatic cities after typhoons and earthquakes are always the same: steel structures lie in ruin while bamboo buildings usually survive.
The article is a report on the workshops held in Boisbuchet. "Every morning, at a long table, in front of a small renovated palace, a group of enthusiasts sit down for breakfast. They have come here to spend a week or two, or perhaps three, at this deserted place, accepting the invitation of the Vitra Museum and the Pompidou Centre. Some are going to create unusually abstract objects, others will make very practical things, although alternative in structure – some of them are already present in architectural textbooks today. Every day, at the same tables, and during the evening lectures, you can meet architects and artists whom the world has called avant-guard outsiders or utopia dreamers, or sometimes even masters and gurus.
And finally, the article presents the profile of architect Simon Velez, who has made bamboo his primary material and who, "despite his complete and considerable experience, does not have an office... or even drawings for his buildings! Let alone computer images or animations. In his practice, Simon has ignored any plan or section drawing activities. As opposed to architects who are slaves of their offices, he is much like the medieval masters or Antonio Gaudi—always present on site.