Oren Pollack moved from the United States to Nicaragua two years ago to join his parents from finding methods to make the planet a better place. He quickly founded a nonprofit agency named Sports Donations for Impact, which joins Panama with baseball equipment, Brazil with football equipment, South Africa with basketball gear and Nicaragua with boxing equipment.

The house where Pollack currently lives also has the prospect of an equivalent number of positive social effect. Pollack’s parents, Ben Sandzer-Bell and Peta Kaplan, pictured The Bambu House as a prototype product for a sustainable bamboo design and production firm in Granada called CO2 Bambu, which offers affordable, ecofriendly housing solutions in the region. The Bambu house has been a springboard for their efforts, and also is a life-size laboratory that tests as many different uses for bamboo design as possible.

at a Glance
Who lives here:
Oren Pollack and his 5 cats
Location:
Granada, Nicaragua
Size: 800 square feet; 1 bedroom, 1 bath
Price: $40 per square foot

Louise Lakier

Virtually everything in the house is native Guadua bamboo, even the furniture, developing a fashion that Pollack describes as ecochic.

Louise Lakier

“The largest splurge item was the hands construction of this bamboo screen-like doors made from rings of bamboo,” Pollack says. “Each piece was connected with little internal bamboo pins to another to create the ultimate functional art piece.”

Louise Lakier

The kitchen is Nispero wood.

Louise Lakier

Original decorative cement block partitions display the kitchen in the garden. The kitchen sink is concrete, while the countertop is inserted with sandstone.

Louise Lakier

The house was a concrete shell having a broken metal roof when Pollack’s parents discovered it. They built the two-story loft on bamboo stilts inside the cement casing.

Louise Lakier

A spiral staircase leads from the backyard upstairs to the bedroom attic space. A lush garden includes mature mango, almond and bitter orange trees.

Louise Lakier

Bamboo mats to the ceiling assist absorb heat and cool the space.

Louise Lakier

“I felt the house was my own the very first time that I climbed the stairs down to meet with an entire bucket using ripe mangos. In mango year this daily collection has become a ritual,” says Pollack.

The bamboo is grown in the municipality of Rosita, Region Autonoma del Atlantico Norte (RAAN), at the northeast region of Nicaragua. CO2 Bambu has built a massive bamboo processing facility there and has trained local community members to harvest the bamboo.

The house columns were harvested out of five-year-old bamboo.

Louise Lakier

Each of the plants in the backyard were purchased in neighboring Catarina, a village that boasts Nicaragua’s largest collection of nurseries. The backyard includes creepers hanging bamboo, avocado and pomegranate trees. Within this lush tropical climate, the backyard reached fruition in only two years.

Louise Lakier

A local wood called cedro macho constitutes the stair treads.

Louise Lakier

The little stone sink on a bamboo cabinet off the main bedroom was carved in a nearby village for $25.

Louise Lakier

Keeping with the eco friendly building doctrine, the deck was built around a massive coconut tree rather than the tree being chopped down. “Today I can walk from my bedroom, reach for my machete and cut myself a new coconut for breakfast,” says Pollack.

Louise Lakier

Bamboo attic doors open to a deck overlooking the backyard and the nearby Mombacho volcano.

Louise Lakier

“During the rainy season, I’m convinced there is nowhere better to be at the upstairs bamboo attic, with all the rain pounding down on the roof; it is truly an indescribable experience,” Pollack says.

Louise Lakier

The bathtub is made from stones that Pollack’s parents gathered during multiple trips to their favorite beaches in Nicaragua.

Louise Lakier

“My favorite place is upstairs in the bedroom with the windows open to the lake and bamboo doors open to the volcano, undergoing forceful breeze blowing throughout the attic. The elevation of this bamboo attic and its proximity to the fruit trees make it feel like being in a tree house,” Pollack says.

Louise Lakier

The mattress frame and the armoire were built onsite. All of the furniture has been designed and built by CO2 Bambu. Bamboo trusses raise the roof above the walls for extra airflow.

Louise Lakier

“Extremely friendly neighbors” encircle Pollack’s home, he says. “They also made me feel part of the neighborhood instantly and are some of the sweetest ladies in Nicaragua.”

Together with his five cats, he also enjoys hanging out with a range of creatures that inhabit the region.

Louise Lakier

“When I’m in this house, I really feel at one with nature. The bamboo and the light possess a magical quality. For me, this house is truly unique and quite special — my home is my refuge,” Pollack says.

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