Shigeru Ban

-S H I G E R U B A N-

“Architects are not building temporary housing because we are too busy building for the privileged people.”.- Shigeru Ban

Just 1% of the population can pay for an architect, what happen to the other 99% of the population? Architects are so busy working for privileged people. However, what happen to the majority, are they not able to have architecture as part of their life? In the last centuries architects have forgotten the essence of architecture, which is to provide comfortable spaces to everyone no matter their social status.

Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz France, Photograph by: Cédric MEURENS

Before the sustainability become trending, there was a Japanese architect who was worrying about the climate change, he started to make designs with recycled cardboard, he said: “In an architecture office, there is so much waste of paper”, so he started this innovative idea that have transcended and even gave him awards. The process is actually simple, he use aluminum tubes, then he covered it with the recycled cardboard, when the cardboard is totally dry the aluminum tubes are removed, and for water proofing the final step is to add a special wax.

Illustration of the cardboard tube process, drawing by: Nelly Ortiz
Cardboard Cathedral, New Zealand, Photography by: John Bentley
Pabellón IE Business School Madrid 14734, Photograph by: Javier, Purple Cloud

The 2014 Pritzker award architect Shigeru Ban, has a vast experience making architecture to the less privileged using paper. Besides his Centre Pompidou in France he is specialized on emergency houses in Japan, Haiti and Rwanda Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Ecuador. Nevertheless, in 2001 earthquake in Ecuador, at the beginning the houses were intended to be temporary, however, after a while the people got attached to them, and the material actually works, so they become their permanent homes. Another example that was pretended to be momentary was a temple called the “Paper Dome” in Nantou, Taiwan. On the other hand, the architect mentions that he do not believe in permanent and not permanent architecture.

The New York Times wrote:

“He was honored to have won, not because the Pritzker would raise his profile but because it affirms the humanitarian emphasis of his work.”

(1) Shigeru Ban demonstrating the construction process to the community (2) A Ban-designed emergency shelter built in Nepal in 2015

(1)Paper log House_Kobe 1995 (2) Exterior view, photograph by: 準建築人手札網站 Forgemind ArchiMedia (3) Interior view, photograph by: 準建築人手札網站 Forgemind ArchiMedia

Besides providing sustainability to their projects, Shigeru Ban has an added value, which is that during the construction of his designs the community participates and get involved in the process, and after a while this derives a sense of belonging to the owners, which makes them to take care of the buildings and have a tracing after the construction is finished.

His most outstanding projects are: