The main intention of this project is to provide to the campus with not only a Fire Station, but also an equipment enhancing the social life, providing the security and safety that the students deserve, because they are the future of Africa.

The concept is based on the idea of a set of pieces of coal burning with a flame coming from inside. Hence the idea shaped in the form of cubes randomly arranged in a one-story building, and the tower is the metaphor of the flame burning.

The building, developed in one single storey, is conformed by various blocks on different heights, responding to the needs that the program is organizing in it’s interior. The supposedly randomized position of those blocks , is not, but responds to a parametric programming of the project’s requirements, resulting a disparity of axis that displays the volumes as a messy amalgam, following a mathematical order.

The Watchtower, formed by a bamboo frame structure, is the main element of the project, and the most visible from far away, making the Fire Station a landmark in the University environment.

The planet is a global eco system and like any system it is no better than its weakest link. Africa is that weak link, it is at the bottom and must be part of the solution. We need more equal parts of top down and bottom up. A healthy ecological global environment depends on diversity. Bamboo can be that bottom up material - literally a grass roots material.
Structurally talking, our goal was to reach a method to prepare a terminal assembly for different varieties of bamboo, required to form a system of nodes useful in construction, with which points or ends of bamboo such that they can be joined together easily and with great precision; and so that the bamboo can be joined to any other type of material, incorporating it into all kinds of structural system.
The purity and beauty comes from the contrasting naturalness of the bamboo with the precision of the stainless steel connections

“The green steel of the XXI Century”

Tensile strength
The fibers of the bamboo run axial. In the outer zone are highly elastic vascular bundle that have a high tensile strength. The tensile strength of these fibers is higher than that of steel, but it’s not possible to construct connections that can transfer these tensile strengths.

Bamboo is able to resist more tensile than compression. Slim tubes are in this occasion superior, too. Inside the silificated outer skin you find axial-parallel extremely elastical fibers with a tensile strength up to 40kN/cm². As a comparison: extremely strong wood fibers can resist a tension up to 5 kN/cm² and steel St37 can resist as highest possible a tension of 37 kN/cm² (ultimate stress limit/breaking limit!)

Elasticity
The enormous elasticity of bamboo makes it to a very good building material for earth-quake endangered areas. Another advantage of bamboo is its low weight. It can be transported and worked easily, the use of cranes is mostly unnecessary.

Fire resistance
The fire resistance is very good because of the high content of silicate acid. Filled up with water, it can stand a temperature of 400° C while the water cooks inside.

Property                                     Value
Density                                0.5 – 0.9 gm/cc
Compressive Strength     53 – 100 MPa
Tensile Strength               111 – 219 MPa
Bending Strength               86 – 229 MPa
Bending Elasticity         6,882 – 20,890 MPa