A bamboo house prototype could help the huge number of people made homeless by the recent Sichuan earthquake in China.

Yan Xiao, an expert in structural design and retrofit at the University of Southern California, has been experimenting with bamboo-based materials and recently built the world’s first bamboo truck bridge in Leiyang, China.

He went to the Sichuan province on May 13, the day after the earthquake and immediately went to work on a housing solution.

The prototype bamboo quake relief house, built in less than two weeks, adopted a modular design that can be adjusted according to specific family needs says Xiao.

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