【 Building materials network 】A few years ago, three German engineers from Madrid Barajas Airport came to a bamboo processing plant in Xiaoshan, China. Their purpose is to verify that the quality of bamboo materials produced by a Chinese company, Dazhuang, is the same as that of the samples submitted. The three men stayed in the factory in Xiaoshan for a week, sampling bamboo materials in different workshops for testing, until the containers arrived at the port, and they also sampled each box.

In 2003, Richard Rogers, a well-known European architect, designed a wavy roof with Mediterranean characteristics for the new terminal of Madrid Airport. He decided to use bamboo for environmental protection.

For many European designers, Bamboo It has become an ideal environmental protection material. Bamboo is a fast-growing plant in the world. The hollow stems of some bamboos can grow 40 cm every day. The oxygen produced by bamboo forests of the same area is 30% more than that from forests. The test conducted by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands shows that the compression resistance of bamboo can be the same as that of brick and cement It is comparable to steel in tensile strength.

Lin Hai, the 62 year old founder of Dazhuang, seized this business opportunity and made his company's bamboo materials become the new favorite of foreign designers. Except Richard? In addition to Rutgers, the designers of BMW interior and Italian crown prince lounge also use bamboo materials. The attention of many designers makes Dazhuang Bamboo flooring Overseas pin Sales are growing rapidly. Lin Hai said that the company's sales this year will exceed 300 million yuan, of which the overseas market will account for 80%.

Lin Hai likes photography and music, but this is not enough to make him a trendsetter in environmental protection and design. He claims that most of the people he usually contacts are young people, and he likes to keep his mentality 15 years lower than his actual age to maintain his vitality.

Keep an eye on the designer

Lin Hai founded Dazhuang in the early 1990s. Previously, he was the deputy director of the Forestry Bureau of Qingyuan County, Zhejiang Province. Lin decided to make bamboo at the beginning floor Export OEM, because it is almost impossible to do bamboo business in China. There are 22 million hectares of bamboo resources in the world. Although China has only 7 million hectares, 90% of bamboo suitable for development and utilization grows in China. As a cheap material, bamboo has been used for hundreds of years in China and is made into furniture , sleeping mat and other products are sold, but the price competition is extremely fierce.

Like many Chinese companies that do OEM for foreign customers, Dazhuang has achieved good business returns in the early years. "When the American container arrived, everyone sent gloves and ran to load it." Lin Hai recalled that the business was very simple at that time. But the simple business model also made him suffer.

The bamboo floor exported by Dazhuang was returned in batches due to cracking and deformation. Lin Hai had to suspend this business and switch to a more technically mature one Solid wood flooring 。

Lin Hai didn't give up the bamboo floor, he put Wood floor The profits obtained are invested in the research and development of bamboo flooring. In addition to recruiting his own research and development team, Lin Hai has cooperated with several forestry colleges in China to establish laboratories, and finally maintained the quality of bamboo flooring at a stable level.

However, Lin Hai's export business has always been unable to do large-scale business. Until 2003, the company's revenue has always been around 20 million yuan. In 2003, the Dutch MOSO, the European dealer of Dazhuang, brought an unexpected message: Richard? Rutgers hopes that the roof of the new terminal will be made of environmentally friendly bamboo materials, and MOSO has become one of the 11 bidding companies. As a partner for many years, Dazhuang and MOSO had previously established a joint venture in Europe.

The project with a total area of 230000 square meters was the largest bamboo project in the world at that time. According to the requirements of the airport, bamboo materials must meet the M1 fire protection standard. A simple description of this standard is to put the spray gun 4 cm away from the bamboo board and fire it. After taking it off, the bamboo board will automatically extinguish without any afterfire. The designer should give all bidders half a year to solve the technical problems, or replace the materials. This led to MOSO's subsequent retreat - if the experiment failed, it would mean a large amount of capital loss.

"I'll bet 200000 dollars to take risks." Lin Hai, who has been looking for a breakthrough, decided to try. The experiment was started immediately. After more than 50 times, it finally succeeded, just half a year later. The samples passed the inspection of the engineer, and Dazhuang signed the order. The order of Dazhuang, which cost 60 million yuan, took two years. It not only made profits of 10 million yuan, but also gained a reputation.

The Madrid airport project has brought more unexpected gains to this Chinese company that only made floors before: in 2005, the sales of Dazhuang exceeded 60 million. Lin Hai soon realized the commercial benefits brought by the combination of environmental protection, technology, designers and star projects - although he also emphasized his own concept of environmental protection before, it was only limited to the floor field, and there was not much technical content except for the natural advantages of bamboo materials.

"This is an exciting order for Dazhuang," said Linhai.

In the following years, more products that seemed unrelated to the floor were provided to customers by Dazhuang. In 2006, Dazhuang began to provide bamboo interiors to nearly 70000 BMW X5 and X6 models every year, and Mercedes Benz subsequently adopted bamboo interiors from Dazhuang.

Since six years ago, Lin Hai has frequently participated in forums and conferences related to environmental protection and new materials at home and abroad. "There are about 5 large conferences every year, and about dozens of conferences have been attended." Lin Hai's more important thing in the conference is to exchange business cards with designers and recommend his bamboo materials to them. "Designers should be more ahead than ordinary people. They like to use cutting-edge materials."

However, in order to meet the various whims of different designers, Dazhuang must ensure that its own technology can cope. Dazhuang Company has a research and development team of 40 people, accounting for 10% of the total number of the company. In addition, Dazhuang has cooperated with the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences, Nanjing Forestry University, Zhejiang University, Cambridge University, etc.