Purpose: Beyond symptomatic communication barriers between designers and communities, glocal resiliency building (GRB) by intercultural groups often challenges traditional service-learning trajectories. Without ambitious performance hurdles, two higher education institutions from Australia and Thailand built rapport via their shared love for Bamboo to level hierarchies between groups: architects, both social and professional. Design/methodology/approach: The author used Basho's "self" - object nexus, as depicted in "Learn Bamboo from Bamboo" Haiku, as a methodology to structure our observations of stakeholders (Haas, 1994). This reflective account, narrated through a tabulated account of iterative engagements among various stakeholders, narrates the metacognitive process of GRB. Findings: Amidst intercultural communication tensions that could have alienated efforts, Bamboo's resourcefulness prompted positive stakeholder interactions. Interculturally relatable Bamboo culture could become an effective mode of communication via a synthesis of craft and construction to cultivate culturally intelligent behaviours. Research limitations/implications: Bamboo was a technology of community that overcame cultural tensions by completing an architectural product. Originality/value: Despite different languages, work ethics and uneasiness, this activism project sensitised differentiating perspectives to transform traditional knowledge hierarchies to negotiate local know-how. Hence, it highlights activism as a methodology for figuring out the unknown layered in spatial and aspatial attributes of material cultures.