Olav Bruin - Architect & Creative Director, Atelier Nomadic
ATELIER NOMADIC is an architecture and landscape design studio that specializes in biophilic architecture and regenerative landscape design. The studio has been honoured with several prestigious international awards including the Architecture Master Prize, International Architecture Award, Design for Asia Award and the UNESCO Prix Versailles.
We began working with Atelier Nomadic in late 2019; a natural choice for the design of a bamboo eco-hotel given the studio’s extensive knowledge of working with bamboo, and of Sri Lanka. Olav Bruin is a bamboo pioneer who knows all too well the challenges and the magic of working with this tropical timber.
We caught up with Olav earlier in December ’21 from his studio, an early 19th century monument built in Delfshaven, to find out more about the evolution of his architectural practice and his journey into the world of bamboo.
"Olav, thank you so much for taking the time to chat today..."
Can you tell me a bit about your journey into the world of bamboo, and whether there was a turning point in your practice which made you want to pursue the material?
I was always interested in natural, low impact building materials, and organic architecture. I went to the Steiner School, where they don’t develop just the brains of the students, but also the senses; crafts and working with your hands. So I was always interested in the craftsmanship of architecture instead of contemporary, high-tech architecture.
Then in my final year at Delft University my graduation project was to redesign the national museum in Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania. I studied tropical architecture from the period before the introduction of air conditioning. Before A/C the architect had to solve the environmental issues, in terms climate, weather, wind, sun using passive design strategies. So my interest in this type of architecture was triggered.
After I went to work at 24H Architecture, where I met Louis (CEO Nomadic Resorts). He was working for Six Senses at the time, and they approached us to design a children’s activity center for their resort in Thailand. They wanted us to use local, natural building materials. So we contacted Charlie Young, who was a bamboo pioneer in Europe at the time, and he introduced us to Jorg [Stamm]. I joined Jorg for a 3-day bamboo workshop in Germany, and in those three days I learned so much from him. That was enough to kick off the bamboo design process.
Olav Bruin, Architect
So it was more like a sequence of projects that lead to bamboo making its way into your practice?
Exactly. The funny thing was, we didn’t know anything about bamboo when we started the design in Thailand, and we had designed all these organically curved beams. In the workshop with Jorg, holding the bamboo in my hands, I realized you can’t actually bend the bamboo. It’s flexible when it waves in the wind, but when it dries it doesn’t bend.
I went to our bamboo supplier, Thailand Bamboo, who were creating bamboo furniture. They helped us to develop a steam oven to heat the bamboo, forming the poles into 30-meter-long curved beams. We would take them hot out of the oven and put them on the building! Our naivety with the material really led to this quite innovative method of construction.
Soneva Kiri, Thailand
Would you say the Six Senses project in Thailand was your big introduction to the world of bamboo?
After 24H Architecture sent me to Thailand I joined Louis in Bali and that was a very special trip because we met Linda Garland (founder of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation), and stayed at her beautiful bamboo home in Ubud. She is the true bamboo pioneer. Jorg was there as well, and he guided us around the Greenschool, and Three Mountain Building.
But in Thailand there was no reference for contemporary bamboo architecture, and there was no real supply chain, so I had to travel within Thailand to look for places to buy bamboo. In this way I can say I was a bamboo pioneer in Thailand.
Then we found a group of bamboo builders from the Karen hill tribe in Chiang Mai. The Karen people still use a lot of bamboo in their villages, and I had learned the contemporary construction techniques from Jorg, which allows you to make larger bamboo structures than traditional joinery.
The whole process was an exchange of knowledge. This time I spent with them was really a life-changing experience.
Panyaden School, Thailand
I didn’t know the Karen hill tribes had been building with bamboo. That’s really interesting. Merging the modern and the traditional techniques really brings the craftsmanship to another level.
When building with bamboo you can’t work in a traditional way as an architect by preparing a set of drawings, giving it to a contractor, and wishing them good luck, because bamboo is organic. Every bamboo is different, so for every pole you must think of where to use it in the building. With bamboo architecture you need to be very involved in the execution or have people who are experienced.
The next step was that I presented the completed building at the World Bamboo Congress, which happened to be in Bangkok that year, which was another nice introduction to the bamboo world.
We met Markus Roselieb there and he asked us to design Panyaden School. Marcus was setting up Chiang Mai Life Construction at that time, and my team of workers were able to move directly from my project to the Panyaden project. I was so happy that the knowledge we gained could stay within this group and that they could also use their skills to get work. The bamboo knowledge empowered them, and they could actually make a living out of it.
Soneva Kiri, Thailand
I guess not only were they empowered, but they also became the experts in Thailand with this type of construction.
Exactly.
At what point did you and Louis begin discussing further collaborations?
Throughout all those projects Louis and I were always fantasizing about how to build resorts in a more low-impact, lightweight way, and in the years following we developed this concept of prefab tented structures, which is where the Looper tent came in. Then Louis found a client in Sri Lanka who was interested in the tents for a safari lodge and he asked if I wanted to team up with him. So I left my old job in 2014 and took the opportunity to establish my studio; Atelier Nomadic.
Wild Coast Lodge, Sri Lanka
I see. So Wild Coast Lodge in Sri Lanka was the starting point of Nomadic Resorts? Quite a project to kickstart your company! How has Nomadic Resorts grown since that time? Is the goal of building low-impact resorts still there?
Yeah, it was our first project. It was so nice to start our company with such a big project that we worked on for two years.
I always have this love for bamboo, and I am always pushing to incorporate the material in our projects. With Wild Coast Lodge it wasn’t possible to use it for the full 100%. We designed bamboo grid shell domes and created a steel frame to support them. We were pioneering with bamboo in Sri Lanka but there was no time to tackle the bamboo legislation, and we ended up importing the bamboo from Thailand. We felt at least if you build something with bamboo, people can see for themselves the possibilities of the material.
That’s why I was so happy when you contacted us because I saw the opportunity to design the very first project in Sri Lanka that will be 100% local bamboo. We haven’t promoted ourselves as bamboo architects enough, I think.
Wild Coast Lodge, Sri Lanka
Ok, so I guess this is where Atelier Nomadic comes in.
Yeah. Nomadic Resorts was established as a hospitality design and consultancy company. It’s really serving the hospitality industry. We decided to separate, in terms of branding, the architecture design studio so we can reach a wider market, and design bamboo schools or social housing, for example. Branding the design studio separately we hope will make this a little easier.
In the years since, Nomadic Resorts has grown to be a global design studio with projects all over the world. How do you bring the ethos of Nomadic Resorts to each project?
We don’t design from a particular style but our designs evolve from a certain process we always follow. For us, anchoring the project in the local context, both culturally and environmentally, is shaping our buildings. We always get inspiration from the local surroundings, so maybe things we find on the site, or in the area. Wild Coast Lodge was inspired by these large boulder outcrops that you find scattered around Yala National Park, and UNA was inspired by the plant cells because it was such a nice, densely vegetated site. We find this quite fascinating.
Playa Viva, Mexico
Clearly you’re drawing a lot from the landscape, but are you also drawing from the vernacular of your context, and how important do you think that is?
Vernacular architecture is super important to study because it is a way of building that’s developed over the centuries, from father to son. That knowledge is anchored in the culture and is developed and improved to protect people living there against the specific climatical conditions. In countries where you see a lot of heavy tropical rains, let’s say, you see that the buildings are often elevated above the ground, lifted to avoid any flooding, or removed from all the scary animals!
The future in architecture also goes more towards minimising energy use. So it’s funny that modernist architecture went way off exploring the endless possibilities of A/C, but now we are circling back and looking for contemporary ways to reinterpret the vernacular.
UNA, Sri Lanka
What do you think is the future of hotel design, in light of this return to the vernacular which you mention, and especially considering the events of the last year and a half? Do you see more developers shifting to greener building concepts?
I think global warming will have a much bigger impact than the pandemic. Because of climate change travellers are more conscious and feel more responsible about how they travel; where they go and where they stay. The way you build your hotel, in a conscious, low-impact way, or how it empowers local communities, and effects surrounding rainforests, is a story that is important to tell, because people staying there want to know these things.
You can’t really stop people from travelling. As a curious species that always wants to explore, I think we just need to travel less, but better quality. We notice that the bigger hotel groups, that have large traditional concrete hotels from the 80s and 90s on the beach, are now setting up boutique hotel brands that make smaller scale hotels. We see a shift towards smaller scale, more personal travelling.
UNA, Sri Lanka
UNA is one such small-scale hotel. Can you explain what it was it about our brief which attracted you to the project?
We saw your project as a groundbreaking project for building with bamboo in Sri Lanka, especially because you wanted to build it yourself with local bamboo and set up that whole industry. Your project hopefully can ignite the bamboo movement in Sri Lanka. People only believe something when they see it, and they are inspired to also want to do it. A little bit like what happened with my first project in Thailand, when you see where Thailand is now with the use of bamboo.
The professional interest of doing UNA was designing a 100% sustainable bamboo and adobe project. The other side was that we really like this kind of process where the client is closely involved in the project, where you develop and create together, and the design is a co-creation.
UNA, Sri Lanka
Lastly Olav, your thoughts on the future of bamboo; I came across an interview with Elora Hardy recently when she spoke about a future where skyscrapers, and whole cities could be built from engineered bamboo. Do you see a similar future with the material?
I agree that engineered bamboo has a great future in the development of our cities, and I believe there is a future where bamboo can be used in a more engineered way, also in an urban environment. Laminated bamboo beams are now at a level where they can be used as structural beams.
In Europe however I see timber as our future building material, rather than bamboo. I don’t see the advantage of shipping bamboo all the way to Europe, and I hope that we are not going to keep shipping building materials from one side of the world to the other. If we create bamboo cities let’s use it in Asia, where it’s a local building material, and here in Europe we focus on our timber industry, which is our local, sustainable building material.
UNA, Sri Lanka
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