For over two years, the professorship Tactical Design at ArtEZ University of the Arts investigated together with designers, corporations and knowledge institutes how new, ecologically and economically sustainable and certifiable value chains – from cultivation to product – can be developed with European cultivated bamboo for applications in construction, interiors and textiles. BambooLogic’s first commercial bamboo plantations in southern Portugal formed the basis for this project called Bamboo Europe – towards a sustainable value chain for European bamboo.

Bamboo is a unique natural product that presents itself as a good alternative to native (hard) woods. It is also fast-growing, enriches impoverished soils and absorbs large amounts of CO2. Unfortunately, the large-scale cultivation, processing, and import from Asia is largely unsustainable and non-transparant. This type of bamboo therefore cannot be labeled as sustainable.

An important part of the project consisted of design research by four design studios and students from the ArtEZ bachelor’s programme in Product Design. They investigated the possibilities of integrating European bamboo into standardised European production systems. Additional research was done on how bamboo-based design can connect to the rich design tradition of European furniture. You can read all about the results and insights from this research project in this e-magazine.