Saturday, May 22, 2010

Bamboo Roof Raising

We have raised our roof structure over our bamboo house and seen how it will perform as the house begins it's completion. We are happy with the performance, and find it to be rather user friendly with only 4 to 5 persons required for it's assembly. It is rather light, since it is bamboo, another advantage of the "wonder grass."
The assembly time for such a roof structure is rather short and simple to erect. All the pieces are attached with nuts and bolts,
well as bamboo plywood. As of of now, we are not using any pieces
of wood for structure, only for windows and doors. This is a plus because if this house had been made of wood, the combined years that are required to have the material ready would be 20+ years, and if this had been of brick mortar and cement, the time it take to create the materials would be vastly more. Our main mission in this housing project is affordability, and user friendly construction. We have found
through our rural surveys that nothing is more important than
affordability, and the ability for the user to assemble it themselves.
On top of that list is durability, which we will see when the monsoon
rains come.


Monday, May 17, 2010



Our design center at our Nagpur campus has started to house our designers ideas, and as the summer rains come, it will be a welcome environment safe from the heat. We are quite happy with the way it turned out, and the two low-seating tables plus the drafting table make it a nice area to occupy.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Wonder Grass's small scale operations





Wonder Grass artisans have started to fill our design studio with some great furniture. With the help of our American designer we have combined the craftsmanship of the Shaker style from the east coast of the United States with that of the time test skill of the Indian artisans working with bamboo. We will have some great chairs completed in the next week, and our design studio as well as meeting area will be complete to house our innovation.
Below are some good photos of some of the chair. Just a sample of some of the fine work we have done.

Although this is not what Wonder Grass does

as a main product line, we can understand
bamboo as a scale that we use everyday.
Additionally, we pride our selves on using bamboo to the maximum efficiency possible, being the replacement of wood.
We will have photos of some great work coming our way soon. Our arch is coming along good, and the housing project is receiving it's first two wall, we just hope we can make it in time for the monsoon season.


Saturday, May 1, 2010

Wonder Grass Becomes Finalist for Sankalp Social Enterprise Awards & Investment Forum

The Sankalp 2010 Awards and Investment Forum is an annual Intellecap initiative committed to catalyzing entrepreneurship in the social enterprise space. Sankalp actively facilitates collaboration between established and budding entrepreneurs, investors, thought leaders and sector stakeholders interested in contributing effectively towards this fledgling yet fast-growing industry.

Wonder Grass has become one of three finalist for the Technology for Development sector of the Sankalp 2010 forum. Wonder Grass Ceo Vaibhav Kaley will be presenting the work and spirit that makes Wonder Grass at the annual forum held in Mumbai. The jury will announce the winners shortly after the presentations and a prize and publicity will follow. Below is the link to the finalist and sectors being awarded this year. We all hope for the best and give congratulations to our fellow nominees.

http://sankalpforum.com/Sankalp/finalists.php