BamStory from NYTimes

[Eastlandia]

By ROB WALKER
Published: November 5, 2006
Bamboo:
While new-and-improved products are a constant feature of the consumer landscape, it?s still unusual to encounter novelty in the form of raw material. This may help explain the vogue for bamboo. Obviously this fast-growing plant (it?s actually a grass) is not new, either as a living thing or as the basic stuff of fabricated goods. Think, for example, of 1950?s-era tiki d?cor or, alternatively, centuries of Asian culture. Even so, bamboo has in the past five years or so gradually acquired a whole new level of popularity in the United States and maybe even a mystique.

One reason for this is its peculiar flexibility as a material. That it can serve as the key ingredient of a hard floor or a soft bed sheet makes it sound like some industrial wonder stuff concocted in a conglomerate?s skunk-works program; that it simply grows out of the ground seems even more wondrous ? and wondrous in a way that?s a little more resonant with the present consumer zeitgeist. Bamboo has long been popular with the ecoconscious set (because, unlike a clear-cut forest, a well-managed bamboo crop replaces itself in a few years). Recently it has also acquired a chic factor that something like, say, hemp, never quite attained. As Susanne Lucas, chairwoman of the board of the World Bamboo Organization (a nonprofit group that promotes bamboo as a material and as an economic development tool), puts it, the grass has become ?fashionable.?

That being the case, the other key to bamboo?s popularity might seem surprising: instead of highlighting the stalks or other visual bambooness cues, recent manufacturing technologies make it possible to minimize them. David Bergman, a New York architect and the founder of Fire and Water Lighting, which specializes in projects that are both ecofriendly and stylish, figures that bamboo?s popularity has been partly helped by this disguising effect. Bergman has a particular interest in what he calls transparent green, meaning design that?s ecologically sound but doesn?t show off that fact ? avoiding the ?granola look,? as he has put it. So while you can tell that bamboo floors aren?t teak, you might not know at a glance that there?s anything ?green? about them. ?It doesn?t have to scream that it?s an ecomaterial,? he says.

This same curious mix of chicness and invisibility applies to the more recent bamboo fabrics. Dan Keesey, a partner in Bamboo Textiles, one of several companies selling such items, says the breakthrough in textiles was the development of a process that turned bamboo into a rayonlike fiber. Big chains like Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond now sell bamboo sheets and pillows ? and emphasize their softness.

All of this has happened at a time when eco-awareness has evolved into the sort of trend reducible to a Vanity Fair-friendly formulation like ?green is the new black.? And of course, becoming an ?it? material is a double-edged business. For starters, there isn?t just one kind of bamboo; there are about 1,400 species, according to Lynn Clark, a professor at Iowa State University who has studied bamboo for decades (and is still discovering new species). Bamboo flooring and other woodlike uses can have a range of qualities depending on whether the stalks were harvested at the appropriate age: too young or too old and the results can be too soft or too brittle and easily damaged. Moreover, much of the bamboo that makes its way to the American consumer comes from China, which means that it?s being shipped around the world ? generally a greenie no-no. Finally, overseas bamboo harvesting is often opaque, with little information available about working conditions or whether crops are really being managed in sustainable ways. TreeHugger, an environmental-lifestyle Web site, has even argued that sometimes a maple floor made from locally harvested wood under a forest-management certification program can be a more environmentally sound choice.

But that?s the flip side of an ecomaterial transcending its eco-ness: bamboo has the vague aura of being green-friendly but not too crunchy ? trendy, in other words. Bamboo has become so well known, in fact, that Bergman, the architect, sometimes steers clients away from it. ?I?ve had one or two instances,? he says, ?where we?ve said, ?It?s too done now.? You don?t want to do something so of-the-moment that it dates the design.?



Dang! I want those sheets an blankets that are made of bamboo! -eastlandia

[Iowaboo]

Deja vu

Only a twisted individual would make us succumb to this. Nice going cadyg. I have deja vu now. I told you!!!!!!

[CadyG]

Alas, Lance, that's what happens when one is too lazy (or energy efficient) to start a whole new thread.

Rob, the story was posted in the Lucky Bamboo thread, just so's ya know. The reason being that it was run in the Boston Globe, too (which is owned by the New York Times and so is a dumping ground for Times features), and the bozo Globe editor who chose the photo to illustrate the story, used a color picture of Lucky Bamboo.

[Jeff: Igor's Apprentice]

Well, I don't know about bamboo bedsheeets, but I can't stop saying good things about my new wicker underwear!

[CadyG]

And don't forget those rattan athletic supporters and brassieres!

[Jeff: Igor's Apprentice]

Ah, yes. Nothing supports like rattan.

[Iowaboo]

Rob, the story was posted in the Lucky Bamboo thread, just so's ya know

Why are we talking to Rob? Does Rob Walker check into this bamboo forum?

[CadyG]

My brainwaves were being subverted by evil spirits. It is, after all, Election Day.

[Iowaboo]

I like ballots. Multiple choice is easy.

[BooKing]

Cady, Lucky bamboo has permeated into your brain and is slowly taking over. I suggest steering away from LB for at least 48hours...


I hope everyone voted {once only} today. N.J. has no hope... We will be the highest property tax in the U.S. forever...

[foxd]

Someone was telling me today about the view that pet owners constituted a voting block. Couldn't the same be true of bamboo growers?

I GROW BAMBOO AND I VOTE!

Something to think about for the 2008 election.

[CadyG]

Somehow, the collective fury of bamboo owners doesn't seem to pack the wallop of the pet-owning contingency, but we could threaten to let rhizomes permeate and take over the infrastructure of society. (ALL YOUR SEWER MAINS ARE BELONG TO US )

[foxd]

Somehow, the collective fury of bamboo owners doesn't seem to pack the wallop of the pet-owning contingency, but we could threaten to let rhizomes permeate and take over the infrastructure of society. (ALL YOUR SEWER MAINS ARE BELONG TO US )

SOMEONE SET US UP THE BAMBOO!

[Bamboomoon]

Thought provoking article. I sort of wonder about copyrights when I see an article like this reproduced on the Internet, but never mind. I like to think about design. I appreciate good design. Great designs are often distilled so completely that they seem (and actually are) quite simple. Architectural Digest (the magazine) is fun to look through, but I am not so naive as to think I will ever have a villa in Canes, or be able to afford a designer to redesign my country house in the south of France, or the beach house in Maui. Posh phrases like "transparent green" are so sheik they kind of reek of too much money. This is a "Vanity Fair friendly" article, which has nothing to do with the life of anybody who isn't so well heeled that they need a separate shoe closet. David Bergman the fashion friendly architect of Fire and Water Lighting is revealing something when he says "It's too done now. You don't want something that's so of the moment that it dates the design." Really? Wasn't the whole article about how "transparent green" bamboo has become, especially for instance, bamboo floors?

[Roy]

By ROB WALKER
Published: November 5, 2006
Bamboo:
While new-and-improved products are a constant feature of the consumer landscape, it?s still unusual to encounter novelty in the form of raw material. This may help explain the vogue for bamboo.....................

Thought provoking article. I sort of wonder about copyrights when I see an article like this reproduced on the Internet, but never mind. ...snip..

Perhaps some of the legal scholars on this forum might know.

The article was put on the internet for people to see. No one on this forum is claiming ownership. But perhaps we could get some ideas from our legal scholars on the forum.

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