Auroville Bamboo Centre

Bamboo here is a building material first and a souvenir never. Founded in 2007 as a sister project of the Mohanam community centre, it trains young people from the villages around Auroville as bamboo craftsmen and tests the material in housing elements, furniture, interiors and everyday objects. Visitors come for the display-and-sales area, where you can see how far a split culm can be pushed, and for hands-on workshops in bamboo craft, treatment and construction; interns and volunteers stay longer. It is a working campus rather than a shop, so message ahead about opening hours and workshop dates.

Bamboo taken seriously as structure and design, in the hands of the neighbouring villages