Jennifer Hardi MCIAT, Programme Director for the BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology and Architectural Engineering degrees at London South Bank University and the Principal Investigator for a Royal Academy of Engineering funded project recently teamed up with Dr Andry Widyowijatnoko, an architect, bamboo expert, researcher and academic from Institute Technology of Bandung (ITB) in Indonesia. They carried out a bamboo tensegrity workshop at London South Bank University in March 2019 as a continuation of a research project.
The three day workshop attracted positive collaboration from academics and students from various disciplines. Tensegrity is an abbreviation of tensile and integrity. The structure consists of compression members connected with wires or strings until it forms a balance and stability without connecting each of the compression members. It creates a floating compression. In the case of bamboo as tensegrity material, the tension member of bamboo tensegrity is in the form of wire or cable and the compression member is in the form of bamboo pole. We hope that this beautiful structure will raise awareness of how great bamboo is as a sustainable construction material! Would we do it again, yes we definitely will! Next time, we hope it will be a permanent structure, bigger and even better!
