Keywords: Cave Urban, Bamboo, Architecture, Community, Collaboration

Abstract

Cave Urban is a Sydney-based multidisciplinary studio formed by artists, architects,

and designers. Their practice explores the intersection of art and architecture by
creating large-scale public installations, with an emphasis on community engage-
ment, collaboration, and ecological design.

Drawing upon research of vernacular construction, Cave Urban is interested in

the construction of lightweight semi-permanent architecture, utilizing the con-
struction process as a mechanism for community engagement and knowledge
transfer. Cave Urban prioritizes the use of locally sourced renewable and recycled
materials to limit ecological impact and looks to embed a social and cultural leg-
acy through the educational empowerment of those involved.
This paper explores Cave Urban’s design and construction methodology in refer-
ence to case studies that demonstrate how technical and community collaboration
enable the construction of new architectural forms that champion the environment
and challenge notions of permanence. It is a process that aims to build social resil-
ience through capacity building and skills development alongside ecological resili-
ence through the local cultivation and use of bamboo as a renewable resource.
Drawing upon the lessons learnt within an Australian context, Cave Urban is then
able to share these findings with the global community.

Introduction

Cave Urban is a Sydney-based multidisciplinary studio formed by artists, archi-

tects, and designers. The practice was formed by Nici Long, Juan Pablo Pinto and
Jed Long to explore present day solutions for sustainable design based upon ver-
nacular and indigenous models of construction. Over a period of ten years, Cave
Urban has researched the idea of temporary light weight construction, based ini-
tially upon research into vernacular architectural forms that later expanded to into
the use of bamboo as an ideal material for community-based architecture, con-
structed from local renewable materials.
Cave Urban’s interest in vernacular architecture centers on how social and cul-
tural ritual were embedded in the process of construction, use and maintenance to
create architecture that responded to local climate, culture, and place (Oliver
2007). To explore these idea’s Cave Urban has sought to translate research into
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practice through the creation of semi-permanent large-scale public works that uti-
lize the construction process as a mechanism for community engagement and
knowledge transfer while minimizing ecological impact by using locally sourced
bamboo.
This process acknowledges that design is a moment within a continual state of
material flow (Brownell 2011), an idea that resonates with SDG12: Responsible
Consumption and Production by accepting there is an impact from the way materi-
als are sourced and disposed of once a work ceases to exist. While seeking to min-
imize their ecological impact Cave Urban looks to extend the legacy of a work be-
yond its physical lifecycle through community-based collaboration that empowers
participants and builds resilience through the exchange of knowledge and develop-
ment of cultural rituals.
Cave Urbans focus upon collaboration occurs at two levels: community collabo-
ration, sharing skills through a master/apprentice model and technical collabora-
tion, developing technical knowledge through interdisciplinary partnerships. This
is a direct response to working in Australia, a country with no history of bamboo
craft and is a process that builds resilience through the exchange of knowledge
and skills, as well as through the ongoing maintenance of forest systems and the
use of low carbon building materials.
This paper explores Cave Urban’s design and construction methodology in refer-
ence to specific case studies, investigating how international cross-disciplinary
collaboration enables global knowledge to be tested at a local scale, exploring the
production of new architectural forms that champion the environment and chal-
lenge notions of permanence.
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Visual Essay

Fig 1. Garma Cultural Exchange (2022), Arnhem Land, Australia. (Image: Peter Eve)
Cave Urban was founded in 2011 to conduct grassroots research, exploring the
embodied knowledge of traditional cultures. In response to the ecological impact
of the built environment, Cave Urban began their research by acknowledging that
material durability does not equate to cultural longevity and sought a different ap-
proach to architecture where materials lifespan aligned with the lifecycle of the
built form. Inspired by the work of anthropologist Paul Memmott, Cave Urban be-
gan their journey exploring the vernacular architecture of Aboriginal Australia,
where temporal architecture was often constructed for seasonal use from locally
available materials. Expanding on this area of interest to encompass other tempo-
rary light weight structures led to an exploration of the possibilities of bamboo as
a building material.
4

Fig 2. Three Mountain Workshop (2007) by John Hardy, Bali, Indonesia. (Image: Nici Long)
Bamboo is a material with a long history of use throughout Asia, the America’s
and Africa. Seminal projects by architects such as Vo Trong Nghia (VTN) in Vi-
etnam or Ibuku in Bali have brought wider attention to the possibilities of bamboo
as sustainable building material, with local cultural and social connection. These
projects have emerged from countries with a history of vernacular construction
with bamboo and are made possible by an abundant local supply of bamboo,
highly skilled crafts people, and less stringent building regulations than what we
have in Australia.
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Fig 3. Crystal Waters Bamboo Farm, Queensland, Australia. (Image: Kai Wasikowski)
Australia has no history of bamboo craft and only three endemic species of bam-
boo, none of which are very suitable for craft or construction (Franklin 2008).
However, there are many small-holder growers who can supply unprocessed bam-
boo in a wide variety of species suitable for craft and construction. These species
of bamboo can grow up to 30m high, with a diameter of 30cm and can be har-
vested for construction after 3 years of growth (Van de Lugt 2017).

Fig 4. Constructing the Hammock Hut (2017), Queensland, Australia. (Image: Jed Long)
6

As a round pole, bamboo requires little processing and when used correctly is in-
credible strong relative to its weight. It is a natural material that provides many
different opportunities for the implementation of UN Sustainable Development
Goal’s at a local scale through increased social, cultural, economic, and ecological
resilience. Discussions about bamboo’s relevance to SDG’s is often considered in
reference to developing countries with a history of bamboo craft and so this paper
looks to explore a different way in which bamboo can be utilized within a devel-
oping country with no history of bamboo craft.

Fig 5. The Hammock Hut (2017), Queensland, Australia. (Image: Jed Long)
Working with bamboo in Australia is faced by several key challenges that in-
clude: a highly regulated construction industry, high labor costs, little experience
of bamboo craft and no industry to supply bamboo material (Long 2015). These
conditions make it challenging to construct large or even small-scale permanent
buildings, however bamboo's fast rate of growth and simplicity to build with make
it an ideal material for semi-permanent community based construction within a
country like Australia.
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Fig 6. Preparing bamboo for weaving Woven Sky (2013), Queensland, Australia. (Image: Kai
Wasikowski)
Bamboo offers a unique opportunity to explore new forms of sustainable archi-
tecture with a focus upon collaboration and community engagement, that builds
resilience through knowledge and skills sharing as well as maintaining local eco-
systems. Since bamboo can be utilized through low-tech processes, it is simple to
work with, but highly labor intensive (McClure 1953). This makes it an ideal ma-
terial for community-based building projects as all steps of the design, harvest and
construction process can be taught to participants regardless of prior experience.
8

Fig 7. Weaving the Hothouse (2015) with UTAS students, Tasmania, Australia. (Image: Mercu-
rio Alvarado)
Cave Urban has developed a design and construct methodology that enables
community participation and education through a master and apprentice model
where the Cave Urban construction team maintains a ratio of roughly 1:1 skilled
workers (masters) to unskilled participants (apprentices) (Norrie et al. 2017). To
facilitate this process, the design of a seemingly complex large-scale structures is
broken down into a series of easy to teach and repeatable tasks that require team-
work and the ongoing supervision of a skilled worker. This not only has the bene-
fit of allowing unskilled participants to meaningfully engage with a project and
upskill, but it also increases the diversity of those involved by allowing participa-
tion regardless of age, gender, or skill.
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Fig 8. Agritecture Studio - University of Tasmania, Tuan Giao, Vietnam. (Image: Nina Annand)
As participants gain experience in the process, they are then able to engage as
collaborators in the decision-making process and take on the role of the master, in-
structing new participants that join throughout the build process (Norrie et al.
2017). Over the course of a project the distinction between master and apprentice
dissolves as all participants gain skill and confidence in the construction process
(Norrie et al. 2017).

Fig 9. Near Kin Kin, Sydney Australia. (Image: Kai Wasikowski)

The design of each structure also allows for the eventual deconstruction and re-
use or decomposition of all materials. This allows temporary works to minimize
10

their ecological impact while ensuring ongoing legacy through the knowledge and
skills shared through the construction process.

Case Study 1: Woven Sky (2013)

Fig 10. Weaving Woven Sky under the supervision of Wang Wen-Chih, Queensland, Australia.
(Image: Kai Wasikowski)
As a way of gaining knowledge on bamboo construction and learning skills not
available in Australia, Cave Urban invited Taiwanese bamboo master, Wang Wen-
Chih to collaborate on the design and construction of ‘Woven Sky’ as; a 100m long
bamboo structure with a central gathering space that was 15m high for the Wood-
ford Folk Festival. Woven Sky aimed to showcase the potential of bamboo as a
building material within an Australian context, by exploring construction systems
that are unique to bamboo- in particular the capacity to weave tensile membranes
out of bamboo splits. The weaving patterns used in creating Woven Sky were de-
rived from different Taiwanese basket making techniques that Wen-Chih had
adapted to create large scale artworks.
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Fig 11. Wang Wen-Chih, building the first model of Woven Sky in his studio in Taiwan. (Image:
Nici Long)
The initial design was developed through a series of small models and sketches
to generate a concept and form that was resolved in-situ through the construction
process. As a cross-cultural exchange one of the key challenges was language,
with Wen-Chih’s wife Mei Wen and two of the local participants acting as transla-
tors between the Taiwanese and Australia participants. Through this process,
sketching and body language played an important role to facilitate communication
and over the course of the build everyone learnt to work together using simple bi-
lingual terminology.
12

Fig 12. Participants building Woven Sky (2013). (Image: Kai Wasikowski)
The construction of Woven Sky was dependent upon the knowledge and skill of
Wen-Chih and his team of Taiwanese artisans but was only made possible through
the involvement of 40 local participants who assisted with the construction of the
work. The participants consisted of a variety of people such as architecture stu-
dents, festival volunteers and builders who shared a common interest in learning
more about bamboo building techniques. Members of the Cave Urban team coor-
dinated the build with Wen-Chih, learning techniques that they could then teach to
smaller groups of the participants, breaking down the build into simple tasks that
could be repeated en masse to create Woven Sky over a period of three weeks. This
was a key component of the process as it allowed Wen-Chih and his team to con-
centrate on building, while the Cave Urban team was able to facilitate the transfer
of knowledge to participants through direct instruction and practical experience in
all stages of the build process including harvesting the bamboo, splitting and
weaving the tensile membrane structure.
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Fig 13. Splitting bamboo for weaving, Woven Sky (2013). (Image: Kai Wasikowski)
As a temporary structure it was critical that ‘Woven Sky’ constructed from recy-
cled and rapidly renewable materials so that its embodied energy matched its pro-
jected lifespan. Built from invasive pine that had been cleared for native bush re-
generation and locally sourced bamboo, all materials increased ecological
resilience through the regeneration of local ecosystems demonstrating an align-
ment with SDG 15: Life on Land.

Fig 14. Woven Sky (2013). (Image: Kai Wasikowski)

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The form of Woven Sky embraced impermanence, resulting in a highly tactile

and temporal central space that filtered light and tracked the movement of the sun
across the course of each day. The project acknowledged that design is a moment
within a continual state of material flow (Brownell 2011) and allowed for its even-
tual decomposition, an idea that resonates with SDG12: Responsible Consumption
and Production by accepting there is an impact from the way materials are sourced
and disposed of once a work ceases to exist.

Fig 15. Woven Sky (2013). (Image: Julian De Lorenzo)

Although the structure no longer stands, it left a cultural imprint upon the festi-
val itself and all of those involved in its construction and occupation over the
course of its three year life. It helped to establish a precedent for large scale tem-
porary works with low ecological impact and high social and cultural benefits. It
was a foundation to the development of Cave Urban, catalyzing an ongoing explo-
ration of temporary architecture built upon the tenets of ecological and social resil-
ience.
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Fig 16. Installing Near Kin Kin (2015) at Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Mercurio Alvarado)
Following from the success of Woven Sky, Cave Urban established a yearly pro-
ject at the Woodford festival, drawing international participants to engage with
building largescale temporary works made from bamboo.

Fig 17. Near Kin Kin (2015) at Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Mercurio Alvarado)
While the initial engagement with Wen Chih enabled a knowledge transfer to
Cave Urban. Ongoing cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations created a
new opportunity to use Woodford as a testing site for ideas that could be shared
16

back to countries with a history of bamboo use. Woodford provided a setting that
allowed for technical collaboration and experimentation that could then be shared
with community participants through building projects, workshops, and talks.

Fig 18. Jed Long of Cave Urban teaching participants about harvesting bamboo during a Human-
itarian shelter workshop at Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Fabian Prideaux)
One example was a workshop run as a collaboration between Cave Urban and
Humanitarian Benchmark Consulting to explore post-disaster shelter made from
bamboo. The goal of the exercise was to educate participants about the needs of
the shelter community and to enabling experimentation of different shelter designs
using bamboo within the highly resilient context of Woodford, rather than testing
ideas on vulnerable communities that do not have the resilience to withstand fail-
ure (Prideaux 2016).

Case Study 2: Prefabricated Space Frame

Cave Urban’s exploration of bamboo as a semi-permanent material is in part a

response to the regulatory challenges of building with natural materials within an
Australian building context. While Cave Urban makes use of a wide variety of
materials dependent on the requirements of a brief, bamboo continues to be a ma-
terial of interest becomes of its ease of use and accessibility for community based
building projects. Woven Sky offered one example of how temporal architectural
forms can embrace their eventual destruction by minimizing carbon impact and
embedding social and cultural ritual into the build process.
 17

Fig 19. Prefabricated Space Frame (2018). (Image: Juan Pablo Pinto)
A different approach to temporary architecture involved the design and construc-
tion of a prefabricated shade structure for the Woodford Folk Festival and in-
volved multiple collaborations with experts from different countries to develop the
design. The brief for ‘Shade Parade’ (2018) asked for a durable bamboo structure
that could span 10m and be stored and re-used each year. Cave Urban engaged
Columbian based bamboo expert Jorg Stamm to assist with the design develop-
ment, drawing upon a project he had previously completed in Mexico.
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Fig 20. Samples for structural testing of standardised steel connection. (Image: Jorg Stamm)
When used in its natural state, the material variability of bamboo makes stand-
ardized construction challenging requiring in-situ resolution of connections (Arce-
Villalobos 1993). Jorg Stamm sought to overcome this through a standardized
connection system consisting of a steel tube inserted into the end of each piece of
bamboo. Cave Urban iterated Jorg Stamm’s design through parametric software,
combining physical and digital tools to develop the design.

Fig 21. Assembling the Shade Parade prototype frame for load testing under the supervision of
Jorg Stamm. (Image: Jed Long)
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While it was possible to have the structure prefabricated in Colombia, Cave Ur-
ban decided upon local fabrication to reduce transport emissions, facilitate a
knowledge transfer, and explore how different species of bamboo would adapt to
this construction system. Working with Jorg Stamm, the Cave Urban team built a
1:1 prototype to test out the construction process and structural capacity of the
space frame.
The bamboo members were constructed using a series of jigs with set dimen-
sions to allow for a standardized construction process. The different bamboo
members where then bolted together at a series of nodal points. While digital and
physical modelling had generated the form of the structure and the jigs had al-
lowed each member to be fabricated to a constant dimension, there were still sev-
eral issues that had to be resolved in-situ.

Fig 22. Shade parade load test results. (Image: Cave Urban)
With no relevant codes for bamboo construction, the 1:1 prototype was load
tested to gain the data required for engineering certification.
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Fig 23. Pre-fabricating Shade Parade. Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Juan Pablo Pinto)
Taking on board the lessons learnt through physical prototyping, the final struc-
ture was fabricated and assembled onsite at the Woodford Folk Festival under the
supervision of Cave Urban. Making use of locally sourced bamboo and low-tech
construction, participants were instructed how to prefabricate each member.
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Fig 24. Assembling Shade Parade. Woodfordia, Queensland (Image: Juan Pablo Pinto)
Each frame was rapidly assembled on the ground into a module that could be
moved and erected by hand, removing the need for heavy machinery. The design
and construction of Shade Parade developed technical knowledge through a com-
bination international expertise, 1:1 physical prototyping and digital modelling
tools. However, through the prototyping and construction of the work, feedback
and innovation from participants also shaped the design as they gained experience
and resolved challenges in-situ.

Fig 25. Shade Parade. Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Margarita Sheliakina)

22

The success of Shade Parade centered on the exploration of how an irregular

material such as bamboo could be used within a standardized construction system
by integrating a simple steel connection point. Through a process of prefabrica-
tion, Cave Urban tested an alternative approach to traditional labor-intensive
methods of bamboo construction by integrating a standardized construction meth-
odology to create a novel solution.

Fig 26. Prefabricating Shade Parade V2 at the Indobamboo factory in Bali, Indonesia. (Image:
Jed Long)
The desire to iterate Shade Parade as a means of exploring new forms of bam-
boo construction, led Cave Urban to partnering with Indobamboo and the Environ-
mental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) to explore how the structure could be made
from laminate bamboo. The process of lamination resolves the material variability
of natural bamboo and creates a standardized, dimensioned product that stores
bamboo’s embodied carbon over a longer lifespan. The prototype of the second it-
eration took place at the Indobamboo factory in Bali utilizing bamboo sourced
from a village based agro-forestry initiative that works to restore degraded land
and provide improve the livelihood of rural communities in Indonesia.
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Fig 27. Assessing the value chain through the implementation of SDG's (Image: Jed Long)
In choosing to import bamboo rather than source it locally, it became critical that
the social and ecological impacts of the value chain were considered and the
SDG’s became a clear framework for assessing this. Breaking down each stage of
the value chain broadened the benefits of the project beyond the finished product
to include the support for reforesting degraded land (SDG 15), improving rural
livelihoods (SDG 8), supporting innovative industry (SDG 9), sourcing carbon
negative building materials (SDG 12), engaging in cross cultural technical devel-
opment (SDG 17) to create a structural solution that made use of sustainable
building practices and displaced the need for steel construction on the site (SDG
11).
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Fig 28. Constructing Shade Parade V2 at Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Alex Crowe)
The final product was flat packed and shipped to Australia in a single container.
The laminate bamboo was still light enough for manual handling and its rectilinear
form allowed the ends of each member to be chamfered, resolving connection is-
sues that were identified during the first iteration.
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Fig 29. Constructing Shade Parade V2 at Woodfordia, Queensland. (Image: Jed Long)

Fig 30. Report on Lessons Learnt for Shade Parade V2 (Image: Cave Urban)
After deconstructing the structure, Cave Urban analyzed the defects and inter-
viewed the participants to gain further understanding of how the fabrication and
assembly process could be improved.
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Fig 31. Assembling prefabricated housing made from laminate bamboo, Indonesia. (Image: Isa-
bella van der Griend)
The findings from this research was shared with the EBF and Indobamboo and
formed the foundation of ongoing research that continues to explore the opportu-
nities for prefabricated architecture made from laminate bamboo. This process
demonstrates how the knowledge gained through experimentation with bamboo in
Australia was able to be translated into other contexts where there are greater op-
portunities for working with bamboo but perhaps not the resilience to enable ex-
perimentation. By responding to the specific constraints of building with bamboo
in Australia, Cave Urban can empower local communities to work with bamboo
and demonstrate how the implementation of SDG’s can take place at both a local
and international scale through cross cultural collaboration.
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Conclusion

Through experimentation and knowledge exchange, Cave Urban has explored

the possibilities of bamboo as a material for semi-permanent construction within
Australia. Focusing upon education and research, Cave Urban has developed a
model for both community collaboration and technical collaboration through en-
gagement with international bamboo experts. This process explores new forms of
semi-permanent construction that builds ecological resilience through the use and
promotion of renewable resources, and cultural and social resilience through
knowledge exchange and empowerment. The outcome is both local and interna-
tional, since the works created respond directly to place, using locally materials
and engaging with local community, while also exchanging technical knowledge
with an international community of experts, testing ideas that can translated back
to less resilient communities with a history of bamboo use. By focusing upon the
creation of semi-permanent work, Cave Urban acknowledges the impermanence
of architectural form and the subsequent responsibility to minimize the ecological
cost of a work and create social and cultural connections that extend beyond the
physical lifespan of a structure.

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