The Northern Rose

The Bamboo Mission - Making Northern Thailand Greener

Field trip with Northern Green to a Bamboo factory in Chiang Mai

A huge bamboo gate welcomes us to a fantastic bamboo factory. Row after row with bamboo pools stands drying on the factory grounds. We can also see a beautiful prototype pavilion created with ancient weaving bamboo techniques from Thailand. The sala, as it is called in thai, is designed by the 24 hours architecture group in Holland. It looks like a spaceship in bamboo. - Low tech is becoming high tech, explains Mark Emery, an Australian Bamboo consultant.

Mark has travelled extensively since he left Australia. In the last couple of years Mark has worked with bamboo projects in Colombia, Bali and recently Koh Kud (Kood) Island Thailand, where he made an impressing bamboo bridge for the famous Six Senses Resort. In Chiang Mai he is currently assisting, with his unique knowledge to build a Green School out of sustainable materials, such as bamboo and adobe clay (soil and binding rice husks).

“Thai people don’t have a culture of constructing houses in bamboo, but they use bamboo for plenty of other things. So we start from their bamboo basket weaving traditions and adapt these skills to constructing houses”.

The International school due to open in 2011, not far from Hang Dong golf course, is founded by an Austrian couple who aims to implement green thinking into the teachings of the school, as well as having the lowest carbon footprints of any international schools in the world.

Bamboo is a durable and timeless material as long as it is protected from strong heat and rain, means Mark. Bamboo has got a slightly bad reputation, but that’s because people don’t know how to use it. One of the most important things about bamboo is to collect it at the right age. The bamboo being used here has to be at least three years old. It’s collected from the hills surrounding Chiang Mai and brought to the factory by the villagers.
Later on, hopefully we can move the production out direct to villages, Mark explains.

Enjoy the pictures from this field trip of the Northern Green group. We hope to pay a visit to the school in the near future and show how the project is developing.

- You will find the factory on Canal Rd, On your left side coming from Mae Hia market Not far from The Royal Ratchapreuk Expo. Just look for the impressive bamboo and straw gate. It’s hard to miss really :)

Check out more of Mark's work on Bambooroo | Facebook.

27 May 2010

Onyx – Taking the traditions of northern Thai handicraft a step further

Entrepreneurs of the Northern Rose (1)
Located not far from the famous traditional handicraft district of Ban Tawai, we find Onyx Designs. An innovative furniture maker that specializes in bamboo, rattan and water hyacinths for their products.

With contemporary Belgian design and the skills of talented Thai craftsmen the result makes an exciting blend of east and west. Onyx is a fresh and modern initiative that brings out the best of indigenous traditions and giving it a new touch.

Olivier Laurent is one of the founders of Onyx. Feeling fed up chasing deadlines and caught up in the stress in a major European company, Olivier left Europe for Chiang Mai. When his friend Xavier who was already in Thailand asked if he wanted to join in to start up a new business, Olivier didn’t hesitate. It took him only a month to move to Chiang Mai and soon after Onyx saw the daylight. In the beginning Onyx was trying to make their products in Ban Tawai but the result wasn’t 100% satisfactory, so they decided to open their own factory. For a good three years now Onyx founders have been working hard to build their brand and developing their products.

Onyx has a vision of creating furniture from sustainable sources. Water hyacinths are a nuisance in the rivers anyway and rattan can be planted and harvested from rainforests without causing damage to the forest.

The Northern Rose had its first contact with Olivier at a Green Fair in Nimmanhemin Street in December last year. At that point we were a bit disappointed to see that many companies at the fair just seemed to use “green products” as a marketing tool. Onyx was one of the few companies that caught our eyes. Olivier admits that there is still a lot of work to realize the idea of 100% green products but it’s getting easier every year, and the environmental awareness increases gradually a as the Thai suppliers becomes more aware of these issues.

- Some years ago, it was hard to find LED lamps for our Bulb chairs but now it’s no problem says Olivier.

At the moment the factory has half a dozen workers. The Oxbow sofa made of “honey” rattan and water hyacinth takes more than two weeks to make. Some of the necessary machines used are imported from Belgium, and modified by Olivier and Xavier to suit their new purpose of cutting and bending rattan. No strong smell of chemicals can be felt in the factory and the workers go on with their job at their own pace.

- We can’t show any three dimension sketch for our workers. They are very talented but the best way is to make a model and then let the workers copy it, Olivier explains. At the same time it takes a lot of work to reach perfection to meet the target set by the Belgian designer Gaëtan Van de Wyer.

This kind of material is best suited for indoor use claims Olivier. If you want furniture for outdoor use, you would better use synthetic rattan, he says further.

Before we leave we have a look at the furniture Onyx displays in the small showroom. We at The Northern Rose are very excited to find these encouraging entrepreneurs, and we will keep looking for interesting people and products to present to our readers. Our target is to find entrepreneurs that strive to make green products, or that shows and example when it comes to social entrepreneurship, or both. We are grateful for any tips that we might get from our readers.

By the way, next time you see an article about Onyx. Remember where you saw it first!

The Bamboo Mission - Making Northern Thailand Greener

Onyx – Taking the traditions of northern Thai handicraft a step further

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