Story at a glance:
- Bamboo design ideas can breathe life into indoor spaces.
- Bamboo’s inherent sustainability and durability make it a great choice of material for furniture, flooring, and decor.
- dassoXTR bamboo decking demonstrates how bamboo serves as a replacement for both plastic composite and unsustainably sourced woods.
Bamboo is strong, beautiful, and grows naturally without the use of harsh chemicals/pesticides or machinery, so it’s no wonder designers and architects are asking for more bamboo design ideas for their projects.
We’ve compiled a list of bamboo design ideas—including chairs, lighting, and flooring—that are both sustainable and eye-catching.
1. David Trubridge’s Cloud Bamboo Pendant
Designer David Trubridge’s Cloud Bamboo Pendant is made from 95% natural materials. Photo courtesy of Lightology
Inspired by clouds over the ocean, New Zealand-based designer David Trubridge built a new Cloud Bamboo Pendant lamp made of 95% natural materials.
His past iteration of the same lamp shape was made from plastic, making his newer version—made from thinly cut bamboo—a sustainable upgrade to say the least.
“For a product conceived from the ocean, the idea of using plastics in products was in direct violation of my ethical standards and focus on sustainable materials and design practices,” Trubridge said to gb&d in a previous interview.
2. Greenington’s Danica Chair
The Scandinavian-inspired Danica chair uses bamboo to bring a comfortable, modern, and sustainable touch to any space. Photo courtesy of Greenington
Greenington—a Kent, Washington–based bamboo furniture company—recently created the Scandinavian-inspired Danica chair, bringing a comfortable, modern, and sustainable touch to any space.
Each Danica chair, which comes in red or gray, has a minimalist design with pronounced curves and an elliptical seat and backrest, making it a sleek bamboo design idea.
“The Danica chair is an introduction of sustainable material to the modern mid-century design. It’s a combination of material engineering, industrial design, and craftsmanship,” designer Jim Liu previously said to gb&d.
The Greenington design team says there are many benefits to bamboo design, including its sustainability and beauty. The bamboo used by the company is organically grown in local farms in Washington. Additionally, the company achieved the chair frame’s light wheat finish through caramelizing the natural sugars in the bamboo using only only heat, steam, and pressure—rather than relying on an environmentally harmful finish.
3. dassoXTR Bamboo Decking
dassoXTR Bamboo Decking is made of fused bamboo, which combines wood’s aesthetic appeal with plastic composite’s durability. Photo courtesy of dasso USA
Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, the dasso Group has developed innovative bamboo products, including bamboo flooring, decking, siding, and furnishings, for more than two decades. In 2006 the dasso Group introduced dassoXTR—an extremely durable bamboo product designed specifically for outdoor applications.
dassoXTR’s bamboo decking is made of fused bamboo—which requires bamboo to be harvested at peak growth, shredded into strands, and then extracted of nutrients. Those bamboo strands—no longer containing nutrients—are then recombined (fused) into a dense, durable panel.
Fused bamboo combines wood’s aesthetic appeal with plastic composite’s durability to make for a perfect outdoor material.
dassoXTR bamboo decking has the look and feel of natural wood, minus the downsides—a short life span, fungus growth, prone to insect and termite attack, rotting, and instability. Similar to plastic composite, it is low maintenance, durable, and non-rotting in nature.
4. Trinity Bamboo Flooring
Strand bamboo—a type of bamboo—revolutionized the world of flooring, according to president of Trinity Bamboo, Tom Goodham. Photo by Roger Turk
Until 2005 traditional bamboo flooring was the only style of bamboo flooring available since the industry started in 1995—but that changed when strand bamboo hit the market.
Unlike traditional bamboo flooring, strand bamboo combines the durability and dimensional stability of tropical hardwoods with the green credentials of traditional bamboo flooring products. “The first time I saw strand bamboo I knew it was going to revolutionize the world of flooring,” Tom Goodham, president of Trinity Bamboo, said to gb&d.
Strand bamboo’s durability, stability, sustainability, and inherent aesthetics make it a top choice for flooring.
Strand bamboo is 141% harder than North American hard maple and is one of the most stable natural materials used in construction today. “To find a hardwood as hard and as dimensionally stable as strand bamboo you’d have to go to quarter-sawn teak or mahogany,” Goodham says. But these hardwoods are mostly harvested from rainforests, increasing stress on already struggling ecosystems.
5. Bamboo Palm as an Indoor Plant
Plants like the bamboo palm can help improve indoor air quality by directly countering toxins that are found in many indoor spaces. Photo by Eric Laignel
Considering the CDC estimates people spend 90% of their time indoors, proper indoor air quality is a must in a home these days.
A bamboo palm, or Chamaedorea Seifrizii, is one of many bamboo design ideas that can help improve indoor air quality. The plant directly counters the toxins Formaldehyde and Xylene that are found in many household items and resins.
Formaldehyde is used in the manufacturing of many household items—from furniture to cosmetics—making it present in almost every home. Long-term exposure to high levels of formaldehyde has been linked to rare nose and throat cancers in workers, according to the CDC. This makes it all the more important to dispel the toxin as much as possible.
Bamboo palms are native to Central and South America, and the plant prefers medium temperatures, making it a great indoor bamboo design idea. People with asthma or other respiratory illness may consider having an indoor bamboo plant in their home to both improve aesthetics and air quality.
