Mortar-injected guadua joints (Vélez)
Unión de guadua con mortero inyectado (Vélez)
- Date
- c. 1985 · confidence low
- Place
- Manizales, Caldas, Colombia
- Credited to
- Simón Vélez
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Vélez fills the internodes of guadua canes (Guadua angustifolia) with cement mortar and joins them with bolts to build frames, trusses and roofs that resist stresses and earthquakes. It made structural a bamboo once seen as a secondary material.
Traditional guadua architecture in Colombia's coffee region (bahareque) is older; the date is approximate because the technique developed through 1980s projects with no single record.
What it led to
- long-span bamboo buildings and bridges, such as the ZERI Pavilion in Hanover (2000)
- Colombian and ISO standards for bamboo structures
- earthquake-resistant guadua housing