True Left

from r/mildlyinteresting

I've been to several asian countries, bamboo is often used for scaffolding. It is actually pretty strong and cheap. There is sooo much bamboo in that part of the world and it grows really fast.

I’ve seen a lot of it in Vietnam and China

Hong Kong has a long history in using bamboo scaffolding.

They've done it in Japan for decades...

It’s used a lot in India as well.

Theyre extremely common in south asia. So common that ive never once seen metal scaffolding being used here

I've seen both in my country but bamboo is more prevalent

You guys have metal scaffolding? It's always bamboo in my country.

And no 280#, beer-bellied, mason walking around up there.

forging steel requires fossil fuels

Almost nothing is worse than mining, and then you have to process and smith it too.

Metal gets so heavy so quickly.

metal gets extremely hot in the sun + its heavy to carry.

Bamboo seems to be a southeast asian way of scaffolding and as long as it has structural integrity it eliminates 2 of the most annoying things about the job.

Bamboo does disambelling, storing and reusing better than metal.

They work. They're cheap. They are easy to handle/replace. They are lighter and faster to setup.

They also flex, which is good during typhoon or earthquakes.

They also don’t snap when they break.

They don’t rust in the humid climate as well

Amazing stuff, it's biodegradable, flexible so it's less likely to be blown down and it grows for free so never a shortage

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How do they prevent it from being a huge fire hazard, is it treated somehow?

it's pretty fire resistant. We use it to cook lemang and several other dish. Also, children make air canon out of it.

Cheap, abundant, natural, reusable.

Useful in hot countries where the heat and the resulting metal expansion can cause issues .

Bamboo has a higher strength to weight ratio than steel.

Also, they been doing this long before steel scaffolding were a thing.

Bamboo scaffold are cheap af when compared to metal scaffold here (we are talking like 10x the cost)

Gulangyu - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gulangyu International Settlement

For a time, Gulangyu was the only international settlement on Chinese soil apart from the International Settlement at Shanghai.

Soon after Xiamen became a treaty port resulting from China's loss in the First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, foreign residents on the island established an informal organization that became formally organized several decades later
...
The consulates, churches, hospitals, schools, police stations, etc. built by those foreign communities explain the predominantly Victorian-era style architecture that can still be seen throughout Gulangyu.
...
As a place of residence for Westerners during Xiamen's colonial past, Gulangyu is famous for its architecture

Gulangyu Island was named the most beautiful district of China by Chinese National Geography magazine.[19]

Modern
0:48
municipal salinity barriers and
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automated tidal gates cost billions to
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implement and depend entirely on
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uninterrupted electrical grids,
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electronic sensors, and synchronized
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computer automation. A single network
1:00
disruption, component failure, or power
1:03
loss stops the entire system. The ocean,
1:06
however, never pauses. A single stone
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structure built in that same year on
1:11
that same plane has been separating
1:13
fresh water from salt water for nearly
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1,200 years. No electricity, no sensors,
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no moving parts. Three physical laws,
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density, gravity, and angle, and nothing
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else.

They were not choosing simplicity
14:34
because complexity was unavailable. They
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were choosing simplicity because a
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correctly designed passive system does
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not fail. That is a different
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calculation than the one modern
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infrastructure makes.

The cutting edge is pointing
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backward.