These $1,000 bamboo homes survived a major earthquake

"When a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar last year, roads buckled and thousands of buildings collapsed. But a group of small, ultra-low-cost homes made from bamboo survived without any damage. Finished just days before the quake, the houses are emergency shelters for some of the millions of people displaced by Myanmar's ongoing civil war. Myanmar-based architecture studio Blue Temple worked with its spinoff construction company Housing Now to make the simple prefab homes as low-cost as possible while still able to withstand natural disasters."

"The construction company builds beams from the bamboo and then puts them together in structural frames that "we can just assemble like an Ikea kit" in less than a week, says Ascoli. "Because of the organic natural of the bamboo that we weave together into the frames, it gives the house a bit of flexibility. Instead of being very stiff and brittle like concrete, it can move a little bit.""

"Bamboo has a long history as a construction material in the country, but the team saw an opportunity to innovate with it. Ascoli, who has been working in Myanmar for the last decade, partnered with a local bamboo carpenter on the concept. The material is already cheaper to use than wood, concrete, or steel. But the architecture studio helped cut costs further by using a thin, low-cost species of bamboo-unlike the large species typically used in construction-and bundling it together to make it stiff and strong."

A Myanmar architecture studio and its construction spinoff produced ultra-low-cost prefab bamboo shelters as emergency housing for civilians displaced by civil war. The houses cost about $1,000 each and were finished days before a 7.7-magnitude earthquake, surviving without damage. The team used a thin, low-cost bamboo species, bundled into beams and assembled into structural frames that can be put up in under a week. The woven bamboo frames provide flexibility and lightness, reducing brittleness under seismic loads. Multiple prototypes and pull-testing informed the design to improve stiffness and pressure resistance while keeping costs minimal.

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