Bamboo has high elasticity and it's heat resistant property allows it to stay in shape when hot water passes through. Below are some initial research to design bamboo into the series of automated interactions in Living Heritages. The cultural connection is strong with bamboo being seen as one of the fundamental materials heavily used in Chinese and Japanese craftsmanship. It's easy to find evidence of bamboo crafts from building houses, furniture, to daily utensils such as cups and toothbrushes.
Mechanical properties of bamboo can be found here:
http://bambus.rwth-aachen.de/eng/PDF-Files/Mechanical%20properties%20of%20bamboo.pdf
Quote from the document above about elasticity:
“Bamboo is able to resist more tensile than compression. Slim tubes are in this occasion superior, too. Inside the silificated outer skin you find axial-parallel extremly elastical fibres with a tensile strength up to 40kN/cm². As a comparison: extremly strong wood fibres can resist a tension up to 5 kN/cm² and steel St37 can resist as highest possible a tension of 37 kN/cm² (ultimate stress limit/breaking limit!) ”
Bending:
In the video below, it shows the process of making a bamboo chair. From 1:22 the video demonstrates how to bend bamboo using heat. (blow torch)
Waterproofing:
For waterproofing, traditional methods include applying 2-3 layers of rubber tree oil to protect bamboo from moisture. Detailed information about how to construct a bamboo building can be found below:
https://www.bamboo-earth-architecture-construction.com/in-the-news/waterproofing-bamboo-roofs/
Some basic bamboo products that can be used for testing and prototyping:
