After some intense “play” and down time in Amsterdam, a lot of walking, movies and consumption of Amsterdam specialties, we take the train to Rotterdam, our next stop. In Rotterdam we have two excellent meetings. Rotterdam was an architectural surprise, as it is a modern city (mostly destroyed during World War II) which features several intriguing architectural constructions.
The first is with a contact that we met initially at SOCAP in San Francisco, Aug of 2011. He reconnected with us about his interest in working with us on some interesting Nicaraguan housing community developments.
It was fortuitous that he happened to be in Rotterdam at the same time as we were in Amsterdam. The meeting went really well and we forged some new friendships and partnerships. Rick took the opportunity of our visit to accelerate things and have us meet his Dutch connections so we were able to sign an MOU that will lead to a sizeable amount of bamboo houses, starting this year.
In Rotterdam we also met with the leading Architecture firm in floating houses. One of CO2 Bambu’s goals is to design and develop the first industrialized low cost amphibious bamboo house to address the huge problem of flooding which exists now and which will become way worse in the years to come.
One of the largest climate change problems the world is facing as glaciers melt and oceans swell. The few countries that have been in the news for massive flooding — Bangladesh, Maldives and Thailand are only the precursors of things to come on a global basis.
This meeting too went exceptionally well, as the three of us had instant chemistry and were able to converge our visions and take the first step towards what we expect will be a long lasting partnership!
We celebrated by going out to an Indonesian meal together.