A landmark for Bukit Lawang

Sunday, December 20, the unique Kapal Bambu restaurant will open in Bukit Lawang, situated on the border of the famous Gunung Leuser Ecosystem, Sumatra, Indonesia. Among the largest bamboo buildings in SEA, it links nature, sustainability and culinary delights.

Upon months of joyful suspense YEL, Foundation for Sustainable Ecosystems, invites for the soft opening of the Kapal Bambu restaurant on Sunday, December 20, 2015 to be hold at the Ecolodge Bukit Lawang Cottages,

Sumatra, Indonesia. Kapal Bambu will enhance the mission of the Ecolodge Bukit Lawang Cottages in promoting sustainable tourism, environmentallyfriendly hotel management and environmental education programmes for a wide range of domestic and international visitors.

The unique bamboo building has been designed and built by Swiss architect Lukas Zollinger in collaboration with the German-Columbian bamboo expert Jörg Stamm. Design, material and construction focuses on sustainability in accordance with the green vision of YEL. On the approx. 1000 square meter plot of land, the architect has used predominantly natural materials. 90 % of the building is from bamboo, which is found in sufficient quantities within 50 to 100 kilometres. While in principle this material is easy to manufacture, the harvesting, preservation and subsequent cutting into the needed length, shape and diameters involves considerable expertise and time. In all 110’800 meters of bamboo with an average diameter of 15cm have been processed.

The magic bamboo, poor man’s timber?

For many years, Indonesian people are accustomed to using bamboo for manifold purposes of daily life, such as furniture, house walls, farm equipment, crafts, musical instruments, even for food. Unfortunately, the multiple benefits of bamboo are not in tune with the value of the bamboo itself. Bamboo has very little economic value and is still regarded as the “poor man’s timber“.

By using bamboo for our new restaurant Kapal Bambu we hope to promote bamboo as a cheap, strong and endurable building material and to improve its image and reveal ist properties as a high-value construction material for permanent buildings, handicrafts, furniture and other, a substitute for tropical hardwood, which is increasingly scarce. „Bamboo for everybody”, that’s the new message we want to launch!

Food, recreation and information

In the basement of the two-storey building there’s the eating area with around 120 seats, the kitchen, as well as the bar, hotel reception, office and shop. On the upper floor opens a large space of 450 square metres, which we call „bamboo lounge“. That’s where you want to be!

With the help of flexible room dividers, functions such as seminars and conferences can be accommodated. A book and video library offers information on nature and environmental conservation, the nearby Gunung Leuser Ecosystem with its unique flora and fauna, as well as the projects of YEL and its NGO partners.

The soft opening of Kapal Bambu on Sunday, December 20, 2015 offers you a great chance to make up your own opinion about the unique restaurant there in Bukit Lawang. The people in charge are happy to make themselves available for interviews.

Opera Batak presents: “Mencari Si Mina”

Originating from a traditional form of theatre, the Opera Batak group performs a play of about 60 minutes, which the group has especially created for the opening of Kapal Bambu. We would not like to disclose any more at this stage: come, marvel and enjoy