Is bamboo a tree or a grass? You’re right. It is classified as a grass and it is the tallest grass in the world. This simple, tall, and pliant grass surprisingly has many uses such as, “construction (flooring, roofing designing, and scaffolding), furniture, food, biofuel, fabrics, cloth, paper, pulp, charcoal, ornamental garden planting, and environmental characteristics, such as a large carbon sink and good phytoremediation option, improving soil structure and soil” (https://www.google.com/search).
Among many of its various uses, bamboo is used predominantly in furniture making and design. In fact, furniture designers use bamboo in making desks and chairs, and other pieces of furniture considering the various characteristics that make it ideal for creating and designing pieces of furniture. Bamboo exudes freshness, elegance, and naturalness that makes a piece of furniture such as a bamboo chair represent nature and its beauty.
Bamboo is also excellent for making furniture because of its high-grade strength and toughness and the use of bamboo is increasing not only in China, the country that abounds with bamboo, and its the largest resource in size and yield ranking first in the world. Aside from that, bamboo is a top choice for furniture making because it easily takes three (3) to five (5) years to make it fully grown.
The aesthetic value of bamboo as a furniture material especially in bamboo weaving is divided into four aspects(https://www.proquest.com/) such as:
- Texture of the material - it possesses natural texture bringing out the simplicity of the bamboo as a furniture material. Moreover, “Furniture made of natural bamboo tends to give a warm, cozy sensory experience (Liu and Zhang 2013).”
- Matching of colors
- Weaving patterns
- Cultural implications
As a furniture material, it has its own classification and application according to a published online article ( Volume 4(5), ISSN: 2394-9333 www.ijtrd.com).
- Original bamboo furniture - the base material is taken directly from the original bamboo as raw material and is in different forms such as bamboo section, slice, and strip.
The bamboo section includes cutting the whole bamboo, removing the oil, polishing it, and then it is bent after firing with the surface layer being processed. As a bamboo material, it can be made into beds, chairs, stools, and tables with guaranteed durability in its simplicity.
Bamboo slices are cut transversely which form sheets that have a thickness of more than 1 (one) mm. In designing furniture, sheets are usually in single, multi, tandem, and woven forms as shown in bamboo chairs, bamboo sheets, and mats.
Bamboo strips are the pieces of bamboo cut into pieces for weaving and can be created as flat or three-dimensional products such as bamboo trunks, curtains, etc. where weaving can form different patterns.
- Bamboo artificial board furniture - the artificial bamboo board is made through a "series of mechanical and chemical processing"
- Bamboo is used with other materials - Bamboo and other materials are combined for aesthetic purposes and to meet the demands of the growing market. The most common combination is bamboo and wood which promotes low carbon and environmental protection and domestic life.
When creating and designing a bamboo furniture, there are things to be considered such as:
- The design of bamboo furniture should feature the natural nature of bamboo, its natural texture, and color meeting the “psychological demands” of the consumers
- the bamboo furniture should mirror cultural characteristics
- The design of bamboo furniture should express information technology as it is innovative and dynamic
- The individuality of the consumers should be considered in the bamboo furniture design
Bamboo weaving also is a process of creating a unique style in furniture design. It includes using bamboo as a natural material and woven to make a kind of furniture design that stands out among the rest. Bamboo woven furniture is classified into two types: prepared as a whole and prepared by the board ( https://www.proquest.com/).
There are different parts of the bamboo that are used as furniture making materials:
- Water bamboo - with its excellent flexibility and toughness is ideal for weaving furniture panels with patterns
- Cichlid bamboo - the colors differ in different stages and it is used for weaving panels of beds, sofas, and for making small cabinets
- Nan bamboo - is smaller but thicker and walled; it is more malleable. It is used for weaving panels that need to be sturdy with great forces
Weaving bamboo is made traditionally with weaving methods and techniques that involves several processes such as:
- Selection of bamboo as good material
- Scraping - using a gimlet knife to smooth out the raised bamboo joints
- Scraping the green - scraping off the outermost green layer of the bamboo for subsequent processing
- Breaking the bamboo - using the knife to split the bamboo into strips of the same width in turn
- Slicing - dividing the bamboo into strips of 2 cm to 5 cm wide according to the desired width of the bamboo strips
- Dividing the scorn - splitting the processed bamboo into thinner strips or scorns
- Triple proofing - the processed bamboo is boiled in hydrogen peroxide and then dried to make the strips fireproof, insect-proof, and anticorrosive
When the aforementioned steps are done, the bamboo strips are ready for weaving. When it is required to color the strips, there are two methods followed such as dyeing before weaving and lacquering as completion to the coloring process.
It is no wonder that bamboo’s popularity and demand for furniture making and design are increasing all over the world as it represents nature with its refreshing and natural beauty.
At Flexispot, they have adjustable standing desks that are made of bamboo that are highly durable and aesthetically designed according to the consumer’s style and sophisticated taste.
A highly recommendable standing desk is the KANA Bamboo Office Standing Desk which is environment-friendly and safer for every user. It exudes aesthetic appeal in any space giving a more relaxing and refreshing atmosphere.
It has its tensile strength and is found to be stronger than timber. The bamboo desk is resistant to scratch, moisture, and insects with the carbonized 2H lacquer coating. It also features an advanced control panel with an LED display, 3 memory height presets, and a built-in reminder system. The lifting capacity is up to 275 lbs. With its anti-collision system. Get yours now!
