Building with Bamboo (with video)
People always ask me how we built our natural bamboo and adobe mud sturctures here at Sueño de Vida—and for good reason!
Here’s just a few qualities that make bamboo is an excellent building material:
1. Strength and flexibility to withstand earthquakes!
2. Termite proof when properly cured
3. Grows quickly and propagates easily for sustainability
4. It is a beneficial plant that holds and conserves water in the tropics
5. Beautiful and brings a clean tranquil feeling to your home
In the video, I explain more benefits of bamboo and how we built our structures here in Ecuador with caña gigante, an especially strong load-bearing form of bambú we are fortunate to have growing here in NW Ecuador's cloud forest.
At Sueño de Vida we work in a meaningful way to heal land ravaged by deforestation. How meaningful? According to a recent UN Foresight Brief on climate change,
--It is of the utmost importance to stop deforestation and to increase reforestation efforts around the world. Agricultural practices should focus on soil building, year-round soil cover with plants and the use of agroforestry methods.
That is exactly what we do here at SdV. You can help by helping us do what we do every day: plant forests that nurture soil, people, and community.
Click HERE to donate directly to our reforestation fund OR make a monthly pledge on our Patreon.
Thank you.
Kristen Krash is the director and co-founder of Sueño de Vida, a regenerative agroforestry farm, education center, nature reserve in Ecuador’s Chocó Andino Cloudforest. Prior to moving, Kristen was known for her guerrilla gardens — productive green spaces she created in any available space. Now an urban transplant in the South American rain forest, she has adapted her urban gardening and sustainability skills to large-scale reforestation of degraded land. She takes a practical and accessible approach to helping others achieve more balance and self-sufficiency in their lives.
Kristen’s articles and interviews have been featured on popular sustainability platforms like Abundant Edge and The Mud Home, and in the Rainforest Regeneration Curriculum at the Ecological Restoration Camps.