In a highly urban environment like Hong Kong, young architects progressively lose their physical connection with materials and manual construction skills and rely mostly on computer-aided design software to conceptualise their architectural design projects. This extreme condition exists within a global phenomenon that increasingly confines architecture to its mere scenographic character. This article presents and discusses the use of bamboo as a building material by second-year architecture students from Hong Kong engaged in an international design and build competition with peers from Southeast Asia. Over three consecutive academic years, students were exposed to the rediscovery of an artisanship tradition and the physical properties of bamboo as a construction material. The exercise allowed students to explore tectonics and reposition architecture as a culturally grounded act and art of construction. The experience achieved onsite is significant for the realisation of context-responsive, environmentally sensitive, and culturally orientated forms of architecture. In Southeast Asia, the use of bamboo enables the architectural project to arise from the roots of a long-standing vernacular tradition and as a result it can become a medium through which the essence of architecture can be discussed. This article investigates the extraordinary pedagogical value provided by student competitions, such as the one organised by the Nansha Wetland Bird Park and the South China University of Technology, which requires the use of local natural materials and the construction to be carried out by the designers.