[:en]Bamboo Treating Experiment [:]

[:en]In July 2016 we had 7 architects from Australia stayed in Yabbiekayu to play with Indonesia and Australia architect students around Jogjakarta. They came and stayed for a week especially just to play with bamboo construction. This was a great coincidence as Yabbiekayu supports many things to do with bamboo by Humanitarian Benchmark and Yabbiekayu building team  (you may check on http://humanitarianbamboo.org/ to see the details). By this great connection another opportunity to experiments and do good stuff with bamboo and some cool people arose and we agreed with two bamboo architects to do a bamboo workhop in October at Yabbiekayu. Hooray!

In preparation of this woven bamboo workshop, we will need loads and loads of bamboo. Our engineer, architect and building team are working to make sure we have enough bamboo stock. We are pulling up bamboo resources from around villages nearby and other possible bamboo suppliers around Jogjakarta.

Parts of the preparation other than managing bamboo stock in place is to make sure that the bamboos are pest proof. After a month or two of thoughts and experiments, Humanitarian Benchmark and Yabbiekayu building team worked out a simple low tech portable solution for treating bamboo.
We have red silicon 3″ truck radiator hoses clamped to bamboo connected with quick clip pneumatic pipes and fittings to two metal cylinders. The first cylinder full of compressed air at 6bar and the second regulated down to 2.5 bar full of borax, borasic acid and water mix. The mix travels through the vascular system of the bamboo pushing out the sap making the treated bamboo completely pest resistant.[:]