BAMBOO GRIDSHELLS

TEAHOUSE

CHONBURI, THAILAND

SPRING 2024

PROFESSOR: LESLIE LOK

PARTNER: DANEL DONAEVA

The Bamboo Teahouse is nestled between urban traffic and the ocean of Chonburi, Thailand, and synthesizes the structural and aesthetic capabilities of bamboo as a natural material to become a semi-transparent, circulatory space of rest. This project began with an in-depth structural study on the behavior of bamboo under active bending conditions. By rigidly connecting bamboo strips to form a mesh, the material's tensile and compressive strengths were studied physically and through Mixed Reality projections with Grasshopper and Pufferfish, from a flat grid to an active bending gridshell. This analysis allowed a fine-tuning of parameters such as grid density, anchor point location, and force points, optimizing the design for structural integrity. Ultimately, the result is a self-sustaining mirrored system in which opposite, interdependent gridshells are mutually enforcing this curvature to create interstitial occupiable spaces. This project is really an embodiment of a material taking its natural form—with the help of technological ingenuity—to create a truly unique space.