Artistry in Bamboo

About Brian Erickson

Originally from northern Wisconsin, Brian graduated from U.W. Madison and fled to warmer climes. In the San Francisco Bay Area he lived and worked for years as a carpenter/craftsman/toymaker.

 

In 1986 he and his wife, Patricia, participated in the activities of the Bay Area Construction Brigade, a volunteer organization in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua during the Contra War. They also happened across David Farrelly's Book of Bamboo at the local library, and a letter from Patricia brought him to their door, full of stories about Nicaragua.

In brief, after spending six weeks in the campo outside of Esteli with the Brigade, Patricia was in love with Central America and Brian had met his first great clump of tropical bamboo. After that, it was no more than a year before they had sold everything in the Bay Area and driven to Nicaragua where they teamed up with a small, ambitious but very inexperienced bamboo project near Matagalpa.

Next stop was Moín, Costa Rica, where Brian spent a year with the Taiwanese Bamboo Technical Mission, learning traditional furniture-making techniques using Phyllostachys aurea. Here Patricia began to paint the scenes from daily life in this Afro-Caribbean setting that were to make her famous. They were accompanied by a Nicaraguan weaver from Masaya who studied weaving with Taiwanese masters.

During this period the Sandinistas were voted out and at the same time the bamboo project there lost its funding, so that after graduating from the Mission the weaver went back home, but Brian and Patricia stayed on in Costa Rica.

A year later Brian began working as prototype furniture designer for the National Bamboo Project at Los Diamantes in Guapiles. After that Project too expired in 1999, he set up his own bamboo farm and workshop on the Rio Blanco west of Guapiles where he and Patricia live and work today.

National Bamboo Project of Costa Rica

The National Bamboo Project of Costa Rica was established in 1986 with the dual aims of reducing deforestation by means of replacing wood with bamboo as a primary building material and providing low cost housing for Costa Rica's rural poor. By cultivating and building with a giant South American bamboo called Guadua, the National Bamboo Project (NBP) was able to raise thousands of new homes for the poor, benefit the environment, and advance bamboo-based building technology. (Wikipedia)

Inspired by (and improving upon) traditional bamboo construction methods from Colombia, Arch. Ana Cecelia Chaves and her collaborators built several model houses and then elaborated a project plan that eventually netted them substantial financing provided by the government of Holland and administered by the UNDP. Various agencies within the Costa Rican government (MAG, ICE) lent them land for bamboo plantations, and a long-term relationship grew up between the NBP and the Ministry of Housing, by means of which the NBP ( later Funbambu) was to eventually build more than 2000 low-cost houses in the rural areas of Costa Rica.

After its fifth year the NBP was transformed into Funbambu (Fundacion de Bambu). The personnel remained essentially the same. The dream was that Funbambu would be an independent and consolidated NGO, but because the NBP had never managed to extricate itself from politics, instead of becoming a true NGO it ended up negotiating a charter for Funbambu that put the Minister of Housing at the helm of its board of directors.

Over the few short years of its existence (1995-99) Funbambu accumulated a deficit with the government's housing program, so that when the PUSC/Rodriguez Administration took charge in May of 1998, it was just a matter of time before Funbambu no longer received “orders” for low-cost houses from the government. But since the International Bamboo Conference was already on the books for November 1998 at the Hotel Herradura in San Jose, the new administration was polite enough to delay pulling the plug until 1999.  Ironically, less than a year after the Conference, Funbambu was gone.

Although the NBP/Funbambu cultivated Guadua bamboo at various sites around the country, it was not until its last years that it really began to use Guadua as a primary structural element in its houses. Most of the bamboo houses built by the Project were comprised of wood (caobilla), cement and Gynerium sagittatum, a “false” bamboo (caña brava), all of it bought from intermediaries in the local market. However, the legacy of the NBP/Funbambu is clear: not only did they build 2000+ houses in the rural areas for low-income families, but they also established a number of guadua plantations that are only recently being tapped into in an important way due to a growing interest in bamboo on the national scene. Funbambu was ahead of its time, but it very much helped Guadua bamboo take root in Costa Rica.

The National Bamboo Project of Costa Rica was established in 1986 with the dual aims of reducing deforestation by means of replacing wood with bamboo as a primary building material and providing low cost housing for Costa Rica's rural poor. By cultivating and building with a giant South American bamboo called Guadua, the National Bamboo Project (NBP) was able to raise thousands of new homes for the poor, benefit the environment, and advance bamboo-based building technology. (Wikipedia)

Inspired by (and improving upon) traditional bamboo construction methods from Colombia, Arch. Ana Cecelia Chaves and her collaborators built several model houses and then elaborated a project plan that eventually netted them substantial financing provided by the government of Holland and administered by the UNDP. Various agencies within the Costa Rican government (MAG, ICE) lent them land for bamboo plantations, and a long-term relationship grew up between the NBP and the Ministry of Housing, by means of which the NBP ( later Funbambu) was to eventually build more than 2000 low-cost houses in the rural areas of Costa Rica.

After its fifth year the NBP was transformed into Funbambu (Fundacion de Bambu). The personnel remained essentially the same. The dream was that Funbambu would be an independent and consolidated NGO, but because the NBP had never managed to extricate itself from politics, instead of becoming a true NGO it ended up negotiating a charter for Funbambu that put the Minister of Housing at the helm of its board of directors.

Over the few short years of its existence (1995-99) Funbambu accumulated a deficit with the government's housing program, so that when the PUSC/Rodriguez Administration took charge in May of 1998, it was just a matter of time before Funbambu no longer received “orders” for low-cost houses from the government. But since the International Bamboo Conference was already on the books for November 1998 at the Hotel Herradura in San Jose, the new administration was polite enough to delay pulling the plug until 1999.  Ironically, less than a year after the Conference, Funbambu was gone.

Although the NBP/Funbambu cultivated Guadua bamboo at various sites around the country, it was not until its last years that it really began to use Guadua as a primary structural element in its houses. Most of the bamboo houses built by the Project were comprised of wood (caobilla), cement and Gynerium sagittatum, a “false” bamboo (caña brava), all of it bought from intermediaries in the local market. However, the legacy of the NBP/Funbambu is clear: not only did they build 2000+ houses in the rural areas for low-income families, but they also established a number of guadua plantations that are only recently being tapped into in an important way due to a growing interest in bamboo on the national scene. Funbambu was ahead of its time, but it very much helped Guadua bamboo take root in Costa Rica.

About Brian Erickson

Originally from northern Wisconsin, Brian graduated from U.W. Madison and fled to warmer climes. In the San Francisco Bay Area he lived and worked for years as a carpenter/craftsman/toymaker.

In 1986 he and his wife, Patricia, participated in the activities of the Bay Area Construction Brigade, a volunteer organization in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua during the Contra War. They also happened across David Farrelly's Book of Bamboo at the local library, and a letter from Patricia brought him to their door, full of stories about Nicaragua.

In brief, after spending six weeks in the campo outside of Esteli with the Brigade, Patricia was in love with Central America and Brian had met his first great clump of tropical bamboo. After that, it was no more than a year before they had sold everything in the Bay Area and driven to Nicaragua where they teamed up with a small, ambitious but very inexperienced bamboo project near Matagalpa.

Next stop was Moín, Costa Rica, where Brian spent a year with the Taiwanese Bamboo Technical Mission, learning traditional furniture-making techniques using Phyllostachys aurea. Here Patricia began to paint the scenes from daily life in this Afro-Caribbean setting that were to make her famous. They were accompanied by a Nicaraguan weaver from Masaya who studied weaving with Taiwanese masters.

During this period the Sandinistas were voted out and at the same time the bamboo project there lost its funding, so that after graduating from the Mission the weaver went back home, but Brian and Patricia stayed on in Costa Rica.

A year later Brian began working as prototype furniture designer for the National Bamboo Project at Los Diamantes in Guapiles. After that Project too expired in 1999, he set up his own bamboo farm and workshop on the Rio Blanco west of Guapiles where he and Patricia live and work today.

Originally from northern Wisconsin, Brian graduated from U.W. Madison and fled to warmer climes. In the San Francisco Bay Area he lived and worked for years as a carpenter/craftsman/toymaker.

In 1986 he and his wife, Patricia, participated in the activities of the Bay Area Construction Brigade, a volunteer organization in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua during the Contra War. They also happened across David Farrelly's Book of Bamboo at the local library, and a letter from Patricia brought him to their door, full of stories about Nicaragua.

In brief, after spending six weeks in the campo outside of Esteli with the Brigade, Patricia was in love with Central America and Brian had met his first great clump of tropical bamboo. After that, it was no more than a year before they had sold everything in the Bay Area and driven to Nicaragua where they teamed up with a small, ambitious but very inexperienced bamboo project near Matagalpa.

Next stop was Moín, Costa Rica, where Brian spent a year with the Taiwanese Bamboo Technical Mission, learning traditional furniture-making techniques using Phyllostachys aurea. Here Patricia began to paint the scenes from daily life in this Afro-Caribbean setting that were to make her famous. They were accompanied by a Nicaraguan weaver from Masaya who studied weaving with Taiwanese masters.

During this period the Sandinistas were voted out and at the same time the bamboo project there lost its funding, so that after graduating from the Mission the weaver went back home, but Brian and Patricia stayed on in Costa Rica.

A year later Brian began working as prototype furniture designer for the National Bamboo Project at Los Diamantes in Guapiles. After that Project too expired in 1999, he set up his own bamboo farm and workshop on the Rio Blanco west of Guapiles where he and Patricia live and work today.

Flame Screen

  Made from: Guadua strips in four panels, piano hinges.  Stain of your choice (here "reddish-yellow") or natural.

Size: 200 cm wide x 188 high

Price: $400

  Made from: Guadua strips in four panels, piano hinges.  Stain of your choice (here "reddish-yellow") or natural.

Size: 200 cm wide x 188 high

Price: $400