Design with bamboo bend : Bridging natural material and computational design

Abstract

Bamboo is a high potential alternative solution for substituting industrial material with its natural characteristics, economical and environmental aspects. However, one of the biggest challenges for natural materials to be used in computational designed is the controllability due to its unevenness nature. The other gap is the lack of material parameters that might be bridged by analysing data acquired from conventional tests. This research studied the raw bamboo strip and its natural forming from bending, by using sampling points and curvature reconstruction. The parametric models of bamboo strips were then constructed to represent its material behaviours for form prediction, material selection, and simulation in parametric design. It also serves as an assistive method for material selection when crafting with bamboo bend.