BANANAS ABOUT BANANAS

by Mai Smith

Bananas are the 4th most important crop in the world with over 400 million people relying on the crop for income or a source of food. With bananas being grown in 135 countries and 145 million tonnes produced annually brings with it a lot of agricultural waste. This waste, in particular the pseudo-trunk, can be transformed into a natural fibre which in turn can be transformed into useful products for textiles or construction.

The proposal is a banana textiles factory, situated in a banana plantation in Ecuador, as the country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas. The proposal houses where the fibre is extracted from the trunk, all the way through to the creation of banana fibre products like clothes. The whole design shows the potential of using the fibre for construction with the proposal constructed from bundled banana fibre rope arches and woven banana rope facades.