A bamboo charcoal factory

The design is for a factory of bamboo charcoal in a mountain village. The factory also acts as demonstration base of the new technology and a displaying space for travelers. The building is a formation to reuse heat, which helps making profit and rejuvenate the village.

The design starts from a research of local traditional bamboo charcoal industry: In traditional way, there are five steps to turn bamboo into charcoal: cutting bamboo, washing bamboo, dry bamboo, further drying, and carbonizing it. But with a special kiln invented by Hu Fuchang, a researcher in Hangzhou, the five steps is simplified into three, and the process is much more efficient in energy, land, and time. The new process uses special kiln to combine the last three steps: drying, further drying with heat, and carbonization into one. In the old way, the heat the carbonizing step gives out is largely wasted, and workers need to heat the water washing bamboo independently. Also, the drying step takes in heat from the sun, which makes the drying procedure rather slow, and it will be much faster if use the heat the carbonization step give out. What’s more, with the help of the new kiln, the old liner process turns into a zigzag one. The higher space is used, and land is saved. For each separated kiln, it will save 20 square meters, and in a factory, there can be quite a lot of them. The by-product of bamboo charcoal is bamboo vinegar and tar. The gas of them is lead to purification tower, and gradually refined in a long tube. The purification tower is tall, and will become a landmark of this place. The ground floor is mainly used for production, and the first floor is a small gallery, where shows the visitors bamboo charcoal. Also, one will have great view on the first floor to watch the whole producing process, making the producing itself an exhibit. The main space of the factory is designed to be arched to imply the space inside kiln. Being huge and heated, the kilns are main character of the whole producing process. Everyone can see them from the outside, but few can enter the space inside the kilns. Kilns are mysterious, and the arch- shaped working space helps expand this feeling.