
The Magic of IBUKU’s Bamboo Buildings
Traditional Balinese craft meets Western engineering in an extraordinary building style
- Text by James Dolan
- Photography by Tommaso Riva
“When properly treated, bamboo structures can last a lifetime or longer.”
—Elora Hardy, IBUKU founder
Some species of bamboo can climb four centimetres within a single hour, making bamboo the fastest-growing plant on earth. Bamboo is also one of the strongest plants, with tensile strength (the maximum load it can support without fracturing) of 28,000 pounds per square inch, making it over 20% stronger than steel.
To Canadian-born architect and designer Elora Hardy, such facts were more than trivia. They were the start of a career-long fascination with bamboo.

Founder and creative founder of IBUKU, a pioneering architectural and design firm based in Bali, Indonesia, Hardy has been studying and developing new ways to use this extraordinary plant to build unique structures that balance form with function.
“When properly treated, bamboo structures can last a lifetime or longer,” Hardy says.
Inspired for a Beautiful Life
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