An oversized, bamboo-clad roof connects the spaces at the Bamboo Gate community centre in Japan, designed by architecture studio Kengo Kuma and Associates.

"It's used for firewood, fences for the cattle, heating fuel, a house's walls and roof. Out of it you can make boats, rafts, furniture, veneer, parquet flooring, paper. And then there's the bamboo ...

Jodo Gyan has fashioned a makeshift microscope factory right on the building's roof. Sitting up there amidst bamboo shards, members have so far chopped and carved about 2,500 microscopes for use ...