Reducing our impact on the environment with bamboo buildings

Katrin

Interview with Olivier Betting, founder of Asali Bali. Asali Bali specializes in unique bamboo buildings using traditional Balinese knowledge in a modern context.  They created a sustainable approach to procurement, design, construction, and aftercare and collaborate with highly skilled artisans from local communities in Bali.

Hi Olivier, so happy to have you here. I am very grateful to interview you for our interior design magazine Being. Can you please introduce yourself and your brand? 

Olivier

I’m Olivier Betting, a structural engineer from France. I’ve been in Bali since 2016 and working on bamboo buildings since then.

Katrin

Your company name – Asali Bali – has an interesting meaning. Can you share it with our readers?

Olivier

Asali is the Sanskrit word for origin, so Asali Bali represents our inspiration and support from the Balinese traditional craftsmanship.

Katrin

How did you start working with bamboo? How did the story of your company start? 

As bamboo grows already straight, we do not need to process it before using it for construction.

Olivier

The founder Thierry Cayot started doing wood furniture in Java, then moved to bamboo furniture. To change the perspectives and mentalities people would have with bamboo he started doing a bamboo building in 2009. I joined the company in 2016 and grew the company from 1 project to 15 to 20 projects per year in order to provide continued work for our teams and build a close collaboration with the local community in Belega.

Katrin

Why did you choose bamboo as a material for your projects? 

By promoting bamboo, we are reducing our impact on environment.

Olivier

As a structural engineer, working with bamboo is the dream cause it’s really what we want to showcase while doing steel and concrete structures, we tend to hide the structure behind it and focus more on the interior.

As bamboo is grass, when we cut bamboo another will grow directly, we don’t need to replant it. In 3 to 6 months, the poles would be 20 to 30 m high and then we wait for 3 to 5 years for the wall thickness to increase.

By promoting bamboo, we are developing an alternative and durable solution for sustainable buildings reducing our impact on our environment.

Katrin

What are the benefits of using bamboo?

Olivier

As bamboo grows already straight, we do not need to process it before using it for construction. The only preparation would be to select them with no default, straight, soak them into the treatment for a week, and let them dry for 2 weeks.

Katrin

How long does a bamboo building last? Do you need special maintenance?  

Olivier

As bamboo is a natural material it will be subject to the natural elements degradation which can be impacted by direct exposure to the sun, permanent sources of moisture, and insects.

In order to build sustainable and durable buildings, we treat bamboo against insects; by design, we include overhang roofing and pedestals in our construction to prevent deterioration against sun and rain. We usually say bamboo buildings need boots and hats for long-lasting.

We now have enough experience to give a 10-year guarantee on our bamboo buildings even though we expect a lifetime for our projects.

Katrin

You have a very unique style. What was your inspiration?

Olivier

The inspiration will really depend on the filling and intuition for the project. We always adapt the design respecting its environment, as well as the background and intention of the client to fit best for the purpose of each individual project. 

Katrin

Tell us some interesting, curious facts about yourself/your studio.

Olivier

1. We integrate the 5 Indonesian national religions in our team: Induh, Catholique, Protestant, Buddhist, and Muslim (and also Atheist).

2. We work on 30 parallel projects (Construction, studies, prospect, material…) with a reduced team of 10 people in our office. 

3. For each project, we work both on high technology as 3D wind simulation and virtual reality as well as really low tech doing physical small-scale models and promoting manual Balinese traditional craftsmanship.

Katrin

What is the vision of your studio?

Olivier

We aim to contribute to raising consciousness and changing the mentalities people would have with bamboo material. Our goal is to develop bamboo buildings with locally sourced solutions over the globe showing by example that we can reduce our footprint carbon.  

Katrin

Which role does sustainability play in your projects? 

Olivier

Sustainability is the core of our motivation and promoting bamboo structures is our way to contribute to alternative sustainable solutions.

Katrin

Do you work just in Bali at the moment?

Olivier

We realize 40% of our projects are in Bali, 40% on the other islands of Indonesia, and 20% overseas in areas like Maldives, Seychelles, India, the Middle East, Africa…

Katrin

I want to ask a personal question. Which profession did you dream about when you were a kid?

Olivier

As a kid, I played a lot with construction tools like Kapla or Lego and was involved in an association to raise awareness on the preservation of the environment. As a kid, it wasn’t a clear vision of what I wanted to do and I feel really grateful to have combined my passions and motivations for building bamboo structures as an alternative sustainable solution for the next generations.

Katrin

I believe together we can change the world for the better. Do you? What is your personal view on the future of our planet? 

Olivier

Our goal is to change the perspectives people would have with bamboo by building a bamboo airport!