Everyone complains about the electronic waste resulting from America’s prosperity, particularly from individual ownership of personal computers.  It does seem that a computer will last you around five years at the most and then will be underpowered to even boot the latest operating system, let alone the programs we use.

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Ming Tang came up with this brilliant idea of constructing these varied origami-inspired foldable bamboo houses after China had been struck by a severe earthquake of 7.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, last May killing 69,000 people.

After hearing that the Chinese government is planning to invest to build some 1.5 million temporary homes for the least fortunate, Ming Tang decided to design a shelter that was easy to produce, cheap and environment friendly. That’s how he got these beautiful geometrically shaped bamboo houses which are lightweight and easy to install thanks to using basic bamboo poles for the recycled paper covered structure. Because of all these, they are very easily adaptable to any kind of situation.

This year’s Re: Construct competition sponsored by San Francisco’s Urban Re:Vision, honored these Origami-inspired Foldable Bamboo Houses. So do we! – via Inhabitat

Apparently the bamboo is not only good for flooring, salad bowls or cutting boards, but also for building some of the most sustainable commuters, the Bamboo Bike. The project was started by the guys at Calfe Design and was meant to build a “green” bike that wouldn’t cost $13,000 like the carbon-fiber bikes we know these days. It costs more or less $2,500 but keep reading and tell me if it’s worth paying that much.

With almost all components made of sustainable materials (like the hemp fiber epoxy composite) the bamboo bike will probably go mass production when they’ll manage to make bamboo grow the way they need (a certain shape) it before assembling it. This may alo take the price down, and more people that would like to do good for the environment could afford it.

But why would someone choose to build a bike out of bamboo? Because it has a higher tensile strength than steel, a stronger compressive abilities than concrete and is smoked and heated to keep it from splitting.

In 2005, Calfe Design was the first on the market to start producing the bamboo bikes. Do you think they’ll hit? Will they be a real success? – via AboutMyPlanet

Would you like one?