BAMBÚ SOCIAL is a non profit organisation which focusses on the improvement of social housing by the use of the local and natural material bamboo, starting in Nicaragua. Regarding the housing situation in El Rama, Nicaragua there is a great deal of room for improvement. Current building techniques are expensive and polluting to their environment. Besides this, the materials commonly used for const
ruction create a warm, humid interior climate. The local population is dependent on, at times unreliable, large-scale central systems for building and electricity as well as water and food. To give an example, deforestation has spread around Rama and wood is getting more and more expensive, resulting in a dependency on expensive construction materials imported from Managua (mainly metals and cement). This dependency also results in frequent power cuts, a lack of clean drinking water in dry season as well as reliance on highly priced imported food. In 2014 BAMBÚ SOCIAL designed a sustainable social housing in El Rama, Nicaragua, developing a building method by the use of the widely available resource bamboo. This building method can be practiced in a completely local manner: from the production and treatment of bamboo to the execution of bamboo pre-fab elements that can be used in local construction. A model house has been constructed with and integrated and decentralised, low-tech, natural water purification and storage system in order to provide clean drinking water for the inhabitants of the house. The model house will act as a library for the local university, the BICU (Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University). Building capacities and the exchange of knowledge are at the core of this project. A series of workshops and a course “Sustainable Design & Construction’’ are being hosted in the center of El Rama, providing theoretical classes to the people while engaging them in practical work on the model house and garden. The aim is develop and spread knowledge on using local renewable resources in order to create comfortable, healthy living environments that are more affordable as well as sustainable than the existing houses.
