Bamboo house by Benjamin Garcia Saxe
Benjamin Garcia Saxe's bamboo house is an inspirational, not to mention beautiful, house with an equally inspirational story to go with it.
Built for only US$40,000 and utilising bamboo with a steel structure, concrete, burlap walls and a tin roof, the architect told us he hoped the project "could be an inspiration to others that wish to build very low cost sustainable housing and use the power of design to produce quality spaces using creativity and sensibility", and we agree that it should be.
The house, completed in January of this year in Costa Rica, was created as a gift to his mother. The story behind that is much better in the words of the architect himself:
My mom and I never had a place we could call home. We met on the streets, always dreaming of a place we could be together. She stayed in the city in order to find comfort in my closeness. I never stopped dreaming of a place where she could find happiness.
Torn apart by the city, she has moved to the forest in search for home. She has found the moon and the sun and they dazzle her every day. She has found beauty in her own cycle of living and her presence in this world. She no longer needs others to compare and measure her happiness.
My mom began to construct the place for her dwelling with scrap wood and plastic bags. She placed her bed on a corner where she could have a direct view of the moon whilst going to sleep. She has told me that that watching the moon reminds her of me.
Perhaps because of her memory of the city, she is afraid that someone will come to disturb her solitude. She has asked me to complete her dream of living safely in the forest, but I know she believes this is a ways for us to always be together.
Inspired by her routine I have given her an internal protected forest of bamboo. At night the cone-like surface of her new home opens to the moon and reminds her that it is me who is holding it in space as she goes calmly to sleep.
Stunning. Who says environmentally friendly design can't be beautiful?
Posted by: Alain | 02 July 2010 at 11:08