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Articles of Interest

Posted on Thu, Jan. 09, 2003
Bamboo or bamboozled? A love of all things bamboo - real and faux - is taking over the home
BY PAMELA SHERROD
Chicago Tribune

(KRT) - It takes the average human about 5 1/2 years to grow to 4 feet. It takes some forms of bamboo just a day.

Compared with woody plants, the growth rate of this reedy grass is unmatched and, these days, you could say the same for its popularity among home-furnishing designers. Bamboo is in the house - just about everywhere.

Real and faux. Sometimes it's bamboo, the material, sometimes bamboo, the shape. It is turning up in wall coverings, flooring, furniture and decorative accessories, such as baskets and bedding.

Why bamboo? Why now?

Largely, the bamboo boom is due to the affinity to the Asian aesthetic, particularly its simplicity, which has been growing continuously for the last 10 years. It also can be attributed to a yearning for the things bamboo has symbolized in Eastern cultures for centuries: strength, resiliency, flexibility, longevity, good luck. The durability and renewability of the plant (it's actually a grass that grows faster and requires less land than trees) also makes it an attractive and eco-friendly alternative to more traditional wood choices.

People like the idea of having renewable natural resources around them, says Terri Erdos, vice president of Jamson Whyte's U.S. operations, which offers bamboo designs for bedroom, living room and dining room. "More people are focusing on the home and focusing on those things that are natural."

The 10-year-old Singapore-based Jamson Whyte, which has a store in New York and a Web site, is known for designs featuring Indonesian and Balinese bamboos. One of its most attractive designs is a sleigh bed that combines teak and bamboo ($1,600 to $2,000). The warm golden brown in the teak and the pecan shading in the bamboo provide a light but solid feel to the design.

"I think bamboo also gives people the feeling that they can be someplace else within their home by creating another world there for themselves," Erdos says.

But it's the concern for the environment - hers and her customers' - that drives Bonnie Trust Dahan to include bamboo designs in her Pure Seasons mail-order catalog and Web site (www.pureseasons.com). Dahan's Sausalito, Calif.-based company, which features natural products for the home, found interest in bamboo was greater than expected when the catalog was introduced in the spring. Because of the demand, Pure Seasons added more bamboo designs for the kitchen, bedroom, child's room and flooring.

Bamboo is "less formal and more adaptable" than other woods, says Dahan. And, she adds, "when bamboo is cut correctly, it has a satin sheen to it that you don't get in other woods."

The reedy grass with tensile strength is found throughout Asia.

"It's been used for centuries in Asian cultures, and it has been used for everything," says Stanley Murashige, who teaches art history and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Furniture, construction, basketry, musical instruments, paper, kitchen tools, dinnerware - even food.

It also has its place in the arts - in paintings and poetry. "It has long been appreciated for the beauty of its shape and for the extraordinary varieties that it comes in," says Murashige, who is third-generation Chinese- and Japanese-American.

"Bamboo as a metaphor began in China," Murashige says. "It is also a metaphor in Korea and Japan." In the Philippines, it recently was chosen as a symbol of peace and unity by two warring groups in Mindanao because it reflected, as one religious figure put it, the Filipino character: "resistant, resilient, enduring, loving, gentle, peaceful . . ."

"It does have some cliche symbols and meanings that have personal association, such as being resilient because it bends under the force of winds," Murashige says. "This becomes a metaphor for someone's virtue, which remains steady under an onslaught."

Because bamboo is evergreen, it also suggests longevity. Because bamboo is hollow inside, Murashige points out that "that emptiness becomes a metaphor for a being that is empty, unbiased and unprejudiced seeing all possibilities in all situations."

But despite all the symbolic references, Murashige is drawn to bamboo because of its beauty. "It's something nice to have," says Murashige, who grew up with bamboo plants in his home and who grows a pot of bamboo in his home today.

"Even if it is not actually bamboo, people like the look and the patterns," says Ingrid Koepcke, decor specialist at EXPO Design Center in Chicago. EXPO has a collection of bamboo designs that include furniture ($30 to $100) and wall coverings made by Imperial, Thibaut and Seabrook.

Designers have responded by not only featuring this relatively new "wood" source but also by borrowing bamboo's silhouette for textiles, detailing in furniture and accessories, such as door handles and vases.

The look alike bamboo styles in desks, tables and chairs (see accompanying story) have reed-shaped legs that are sometimes the same natural shade as real bamboo and sometimes in a black or red lacquered finish. In vases, styles come in glass and ceramic, with the shape being true to the look of bamboo.

In upholstery, bamboo patterns are the design in the fabric and in wall coverings, bamboo patterns as well as texture make the wall coverings feel as well as look like the real thing.

"The look is simple, but still sophisticated and relaxing," says Koepcke. And that's just what people want today

© 2003, Chicago Tribune.

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Michael McDonough '75 seeks design solutions for the next century

If you plan to engage in conversation with architect Michael McDonough, be prepared to talk bamboo. Bamboo as a material for making things. Bamboo as an alternative to cutting down rain forests. Bamboo as reforestation, as an erosion control crop, as a micro-economic generator. Bamboo as "the poster child for the environmentalist movement of the 21st century."

These days, the multi-award-winning designer, writer, and teacher is a globe-trotter for the Cause, currently designing and producing the first contract line of bamboo furniture since Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (designer of MIT's Baker dorms) experimented with it in the late 1930's. McDonough has also taught a seminar on bamboo at the Rhode Island School of Design, and he is deeply involved in Internetting with scientists and other activists around the world for the purpose of promoting bamboo consciousness.

The Internet, or more generally the computer, is the other hot topic of conversation with McDonough. Bamboo and the computer are linked in his mind and his work. He describes the union thus: "It is the old and the new, the ancient and the hyper-modern."

So how does an architect of note come to be pushing bamboo with such fervor? By a circuitous and sometimes serendipitous pathÐa path which, not incidentally, wound its way through the inspired and inspiring classrooms of UMass Boston.
Michael McDonough is a born and bred Bostonian whose father was a carpenter and a builder. "From the time I was a kid, I was working with my father," McDonough recalls fondly. "At eleven and twelve I was building houses and digging foundations and mixing concrete. My father wanted to be an architect, but circumstances didn't allow it." One might assume that McDonough's background would have led him directly into architecture, but at UMass Boston he majored in English. "I had to support myself and pay for my education," he says. "I had a little construction company that I started on the side, and I would work nights and weekends doing construction, and then I'd read great literature."

Then McDonough's father died. "His death was a kind of hinge in my life. I took some time off and went to Europe." And there he realized that he was "fascinated by the buildings. I found them as compelling as I had found the books a few years before, and I really wanted to be an architect." When he came back, he finished his English degree and took the prerequisites for architecture.

Then it was on to MIT and finallyÐafter a five-year break in New York working with Soho artistsÐa master's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Following brief stints at architectural firms in Boston, he headed back to Soho, where he set up his own firm and was soon designing private homes and public spaces, exhibiting and lecturing around the country, and writing regularly for Metropolitan Home and Industrial Design magazines.

"It was a good time in many ways," he says. "There was a lot of money. There was a lot of support for the arts, a lot of interest in design for design's sake. I was very much involved in that world and achieved a certain amount of success in it. And then it sort of came to a grinding halt. I still did okay, but it made me question what I'd been doing. Then I decided that I wanted to take a different path. I'd done 'A' for a while and I wanted to do 'B.' But I didn't know what 'B' was."

McDonough was used to reinventing himself. Exploring. Seeking. He'd been nurtured for it at home and educated for it at UMass Boston. Indeed, he sees his UMass Boston years as pivotal to all that has since occurred in his life and career. "It was education as discovery," he says, "rather than inculcation or learning by rote. There was much more emphasis on a sort of joyous discovery, especially in the English Department. The whole experience of doing what came out of a process of discovery was something I learned there, or it was supported there. You don't see that very often. It's rare."

"I don't know if people would think of UMass Boston as being an extremely privileged educational experience, but it was for me," he adds with feeling. "It was a real luxury, a real indulgence, because it was all about discovery. For me, my professional career has been an extension of that discovery process."

Which is how McDonough came to move eagerly toward the unknown world of "B." "I took some time off," he recalls. "I read a lot and reflected. I put myself in a strange place and stayed there for a while, on purpose." When he emerged from that 'strange place' it was with a commitment to learn computing. Now, he says, "I think the Internet and the world of computers is as real and authentic as the ground we walk on, and it's no more or less important. It's just part of the environment."
As for the bamboo connection, it came about as a result of his longstanding interest in social issues, coupled with an admiration for the previously mentioned Alvar Aalto, whose design work included two prototype bamboo chairs. But bamboo is a difficult material, and no designer after Aalto had risen to the challenge.

"I really like a challenge," McDonough admits, grinning widely. The challenge led him to Europe to meet with the people in charge of Aalto's estate, and then to the bamboo forests of both Europe and Asia to learn more. While in Indonesia, he connected with a group called The Environmental Bamboo Foundation, whose mission is to promote the use of bamboo as a solution for many economic and environmental problems. "I said, 'we could promote it through use rather than through proselytizing.' So I designed some chairs."

He's also extended his use of computers to the point where he speaks of his firm as a "virtual company." But in his discovery of "B" he hasn't left "A" behind. If anything, he's strengthened his architectural practiceÐwitness the atrium he recently designed for Philadelphia's Sheraton Rittenhouse Square Hotel, using living bamboo plants, bamboo furniture and flooring, and tiles made from soybeans and recycled paper.

It's clear that McDonough is deeply happy with where his journey has led him thus far. "I came from a rather small community ‘a blue collar community’ in a rather class conscious city. The people around me were families of construction workers, truck drivers, factory workers. And I've been able to attend extraordinary educational institutions and meet some of the great writers and thinkers, not only in my country but all around the world. I'm just grateful every day to be alive."

And does he have any idea where he'll be five years from now -after he, no doubt, goes looking for some other letter of the alphabet? "I hope not!" McDonough laughs. "That would be no fun at all."

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Interior Design Trends for 2003 and Beyond
By Jodi Murphy, ASID California Peninsula Chapter

Have you ever implemented a "hot" design trend in your home one year and regretted it? Did it hit you one day that your once-chic room design is now out ... very out? To avoid this unfortunate situation in the future, the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) recommends focusing on and implementing design trends with staying power.

"This industry isn't like fashion design," muses Los Angeles-based interior designer B.J. Peterson, FASID. "People just can't run out and change things on a whim, unless they have unlimited budgets." She, as well as other ASID designers, makes sure that each element in her clients' homes reflects their personalities and lifestyles, not some design gimmick of the moment.

Changing needs are driving the following interior design trends in 2003.

Family Focus
Today, more and more homeowners have a better understanding that great design means effective use of space. "People are realizing that design is for them, and not just for the rich and famous," Peterson said. "People want to maximize their space and make each room function for the way their families live." Formal rooms previously "off limits" to family use except during special occasions are being replaced with rooms that deliver extreme comfort and livability along with high style.
The kitchen is the "Grand Central Station" of the home. Kitchens have always been the heart of family life, but are even more so today. Unique appliances and the variety of countertop, flooring and cabinetry options available allow homeowners to use kitchens for a variety of tasks - not just cooking and eating. Modern kitchens are bursting with activity, and many feature multiple prep and cooking areas, homework and work/computer desks, coffee stations, butler's pantries, beverage centers, and special dining and living areas. With so many uses, ASID recommends getting expert advice from an interior designer when designing a room as essential to family life as the kitchen.

Specialty Rooms Popular with "Empty Nesters"
The popularity of special-use or specialty rooms also is on the rise, particularly with "empty nesters." Media rooms, wine cellars, meditation rooms, libraries, sewing centers and other rooms with special purposes are gaining in popularity as people seek to incorporate their hobbies into their home life. Many homeowners are abandoning traditional room layouts when it comes to specifying a room's primary function for innovations that better suit their needs. "I have clients who moved into the spare bedroom and transformed their master bedroom into a media room," said designer Susan Davis, Allied Member ASID, Mountain View, Calif. "Complete with an 8-foot screen, terrific sound, leather seating and a comfortable chaise, the room works for movie viewing, casual entertaining, a teen hangout and an escape to read a book or listen to music. Though unconventional, it was the perfect use of space for this family's way of living."

Color Makes a Comeback
People are becoming more open to color in their rooms. Homeowners are breaking free from the beige "blahs" and selecting colors that will spark a response, set a mood or create a warm and inviting atmosphere. Bold, subtle or somewhere in between, the palate chosen should reflect the family's dynamics, lifestyle and personality. A particular color should not be used just because fashion says it's "in" at the moment.

"Green" Comes Home
"Green" design also is becoming increasingly popular in the home. People are beginning to understand the importance of and using "earth-friendly" building products that will have a long-term, positive impact on the environment and human health and welfare. Bamboo and cork flooring, plant-based paints and finishes, and salvaged wood are some of the alternative materials being specified by designers today.

Avoid Being a Trend "Victim"
How can you ensure that you aren't falling victim to today's trends and tomorrow's faux pas? Hire a professional interior designer. Designers take into account your needs, way of life and budget to provide effective and beautiful solutions you can live with for many years to come. To find out how to locate a qualified interior designer in your community, check out ASID's free Worldwide Referral Service at www.interiors.org.

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Bamboo Flooring: This Grass Is Truly Greener
By Randy Prewitt

The phrase “turning over a new leaf in life” very aptly describes the hardwood flooring industry’s growing interest in “pasture-grown” bamboo. Once again, manufacturers are experimenting with an alternative to the oak tree — our industry’s traditional source of raw material. Although oak still reigns supreme for most manufacturers, distributors and retailers/contractors, products that are individually unique, relatively available and, most of all, consistent in yield and capacity for renewal cannot be ignored.

Imagine, if you will, an expansive stand of 20-foot-tall trees with “shoots” that measure an inch thick. This thicket has no other species of trees within its midst and is contained in a swath of pasture that’s one-quarter mile wide and four miles long. Large patches of lush bamboo, like the one I just described, frequently could be found in the Midwest and South regions of the United States. Sparse populations of bamboo were also present in upper portions of North America but, due to the region’s colder winters, their growth potential was always limited.

You might find that surprising, considering that most people in our industry associate bamboo flooring with foreign manufacturers. Once-abundant fields of bamboo in North America were a neglected resource, however. So-called “Giant Cane” (Arundinaria Gigantea) is unusual in that it is our largest grass species and it also is quite “woody.”

Bamboo was nicknamed “canebrakes.” Researchers say that cane, which is rich in phosphorus, calcium and crude protein, is the most nutritious native grass forage available in the southern United States. Cattle that graze on cane show significant weight gains and are said to produce superior milk and butter. There was a truly harmonious relationship between cattle and cane. The cattle grazed on this superior feed and then were relocated to alternate pastures, which allowed the fast-growing cane fields to regenerate.

The presence of naturally occurring cane fields also indicated to early settlers of the region that the soil was extremely rich. They quickly found that the soil was fertile enough to support other crops as well. Cane fields were easier to clear than lands heavily populated by trees. Thus, cane habitat was converted to farm fields.

Clear cutting, combined with overgrazing, spelled the demise of the canebrakes. And in the few places where cane was left to stand, it was grazed down faster than it could grow back. Typically, once a canebrake was no longer useful for grazing, it was cleared for farmland. As a result, North American canebrakes became virtually extinct.

Ironically, because most products made of bamboo today are imported from foreign lands, the species is considered exotic in the U.S. marketplace.

In recent years, consumer interest in exotic hardwood flooring products has significantly increased. Bamboo has not escaped their notice, and wood floors fashioned out of this material have made their way back home to North America. By touting the uniqueness and versatility of this renewable flooring product, the design community also has influenced consumer demand for bamboo.

Bamboo floors are available in two distinct versions: natural and carmelized. As with all hardwood flooring products in today’s market, the natural look still prevails as the primary color of choice. Carmelized products add another dimension to the product by adding a desirable touch of amber.

The industry seems confident that bamboo will enjoy broad acceptance in the U.S. market. Sundry manufacturers have demonstrated that they are already on board by supplying air vents, baseboard and miscellaneous trims to enhance every bamboo flooring installation. Inset medallions composed of bamboo are now available as well. Bamboo flooring itself is predominantly manufactured in 3/8- and 5/8-inch thicknesses. Widths can range from a modest 3 5/8 inches to bold 6-inch planks.

Another positive aspect of bamboo flooring is its installation versatility. Obviously, the criteria and specifications of the manufacturer must be strictly observed to obtain an installation that stands the test of time. Relative humidity, moisture content and the jobsite conditions can alter the results of the installation and determine how long the floor lasts.

Bamboo floors can be floated or installed with mechanical fasteners or adhesive. Depending upon your region of operation, bamboo flooring offers any consumer and dealer/contractor a variety of options for a competent installation. The product is available in both prefinished and unfinished varieties. Following today’s industry standards, prefinished bamboo is manufactured with UV-cured polyurethane that contains aluminum oxide for improved finish durability. Another plus for bamboo is the availability of both vertical and horizontal grain.

Surprisingly, for a flooring product that has become associated with wood even though it originates from pastures of grass in its infancy, bamboo offers additional benefits compared to more traditional hardwood flooring species. For instance, bamboo and maple are relatively equivalent in terms of hardness. However, the tight grain and color consistency associated with 1st grade maple may just have to take a back seat to bamboo.

The company I represent recently installed our first bamboo flooring job. The 4,500 square foot installation is stunning. The uniformity and color consistency on this 6-inch wide bamboo plank has definitely created a buzz among all the trades that were involved with this residential remodeling project. Even our initial anxiety about the stability of a wide-plank bamboo installation has proven to be unfounded.

How can you say “no” to a product that re-grows to full maturity, and is ready for harvesting, in less than five years? Wood or Wood Knot invites you to accept the challenge of bamboo flooring. If you do, you’ll have one more terrific resource at your disposal for “stalking” your competition. Besides, wouldn’t you agree that it’s about time we “raised a little cane”?

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