The Peru Project – Low Cost Housing for the United Nations: Composite bamboo & polyurethane foam beams

01/01/1969

Preliminary Design, Axonometric, Details

Sketches illustrating various types of composite bamboo and polyurethane foam beam. The beam developed was 40cm high with the fully round bamboos forming the beam perimeter. .

Designers:

Christopher Alexander, Sanford Hirshen, Sara Ishikawa, Christie Coffin, Shlomo Angel, Lima, Peru

Medium:

Original on Tracing Paper

Size:

8 1/2"x11"

Content of

Construction Innovation

Peru Project - Low Cost Housing for the United Nations: Composite bamboo foam beams 1969

Construction System, Bamboo Foam Beam & Plank

Created by:

Christopher Alexander, Sanford Hirshen, Sara Ishikawa, Christie Coffin, Shlomo Angel

Boxed beams rectangular in section, 20 cm wide, 40 cm deep and 5 meters long, made of 6cm bamboos, placed over plywood templates, with a core of poly-urethane fire-retardant foam, foamed in place. The bamboos are pinned and spot glued ...

References

Scientific Research

Innovative Construction Systems, Techniques and Materials

Areas of focus:

Design and Building Process

Guiding idea:

Construction Innovation

One of the main topics of research, included in every building project, was to identify, early on in the design process, the material and techniques of construction. This would re-establish building as an art, and allow rapid shaping and adaptation, ...

Published Books

Houses Generated by Patterns 01/01/1969

Publication, Original Book

Authors:

Christopher Alexander, Sanford Hirshen, Sara Ishikawa, Christie Coffin, Shlomo Angel

Publisher:

Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

The second of Alexander’s early works published by the Center for Environmental Structure, lays out the process of creating the pattern language for a group of houses designed for an experimental housing competition in Lima, Peru in 1969. It ...