The Globe and Mail

Forget steel and concrete. The building material of choice for the 21st century might just be bamboo. This hollow-stemmed grass isn't just for flimsy tropical huts any more — it's getting outsized attention in the world of serious architecture. From Hawaii to Vietnam, it's used to build everything from luxury homes and holiday resorts to churches and bridges. Boosters call it "vegetal steel," with clear environmental appeal. Lighter than steel but five times stronger than concrete, bamboo is native to every continent except Europe and Antarctica. And unlike slow-to-harvest timber, bamboo's woody stalks can shoot up several feet a day, absorbing four times as much carbon dioxide. "The relationship to weight and resistance is the best in the world. Anything built with steel, I can do in bamboo faster and just as cheaply," said Colombian architect Simon Velez, who almost single-handedly thrust to the vanguard of design a material previously associated with woven mats and Andean pan pipes. Velez created the largest bamboo structure ever built: the 55,200-sq. ft. Nomadic Museum, a temporary building that recently debuted in Mexico City and takes up half of the Zocalo plaza.