Table of contents:
- He liked the smell of wood …
- An architect for the underprivileged
- Paper and cardboard are for a long time
Video: Japanese builds houses of paper and cardboard for refugees and oligarchs
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Modern architects increasingly began to blindly chase fashion. Some are carried away by horizontal lines, others by waves, and still others are attracted by the idea of shapeless, abstract buildings. According to the Pritzker Prize laureate, the world famous Japanese architect Shigeru Bana, the only way for an architect not to succumb to the banal influence of fashion is to look for new approaches to the design of structures and … new materials. Ban makes his unique houses out of cardboard …
He liked the smell of wood …
Shigeru was born in 1957 into the family of a Toyota employee and a fashion designer, but he himself decided as a child that he would become an architect. However, when builders were working at their house, he still had no idea that there was such a profession as an architect - he simply admired what these people were doing. He liked the smell of wood, he picked up used chips and blocks and then tried to make something out of them himself. Shigeru assembled a model of his first house when he was in 10th grade …
Now he is recognized not only as the best architect in Japan, but also one of the greatest architects in the world. Among his extravagant works are a cardboard Catholic church in the Japanese city of Kobe, a paper pedestrian bridge over the Gardon River in the south of France (his paper-plastic steps are made from recycled materials), a paper concert hall in Italy, a school made of cardboard pipes in China, and more. many, many similar projects.
Ban repeatedly emphasized that he does not create for the sake of money or world recognition, but primarily for people:.
An architect for the underprivileged
Shigeru Ban is best known and respected as an architect of buildings for refugees affected by natural disasters. Rwanda, Haiti, Ecuador, China, native Japan - almost everywhere where there are refugees, Shigeru Bana's cardboard pipes become a real lifesaver. On their basis, he builds simple structures that are cheap, light, assembled very quickly and can subsequently be reused - in another part of the world.
When creating homes for refugees, the architect is guided solely by the requests that come from the affected country. And the conditions are very specific. For example, when building shelters for victims of the genocide in Rwanda, Ban tried to use the material as economically as possible, because he was on a limited budget ($ 50 per house). In addition, while developing the project, he understood that if the housing for the refugee was too luxurious, the person would not have the motivation to return someday and rebuild his own home, which is wrong.
While working on housing for victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Ban faced another interesting nuance. On the one hand, the refugees wanted their temporary homes to be able to retire, on the other hand, the government did not approve of too closed premises, since it was necessary to exercise control over the victims (for example, to ensure that they did not drink, there was no theft, etc..). The architect found an interesting way out: he made partitions from translucent fabric.
Last year, the architect was awarded the Mother Teresa Prize for his topical projects for refugees.
Paper and cardboard are for a long time
The architect constantly hears the same question from skeptics: - he answers confidently. Ban cites a church built after a natural disaster in New Zealand as an example. Its huge cardboard tubes (600 mm in diameter) are very strong, they are protected from above by a polycarbonate roof, and the floor of the building is made of concrete.
In fairness, it should be noted that one of its European buildings once suffered from a record heavy snowfall on the roof, however, such force majeure happens all over the world with ordinary (non-paper) houses.
The architect does not at all consider his monumental projects made of cardboard and paper to be temporary. Moreover, the success and longevity of a building, according to Ban, is not determined at all by the material from which it was created.
“- he argues. -
Ban is not only the author of paper projects. He works with concrete, metal and wood. However, four years ago he received the prestigious Pritzker Prize precisely for the creation of his innovative paper designs. - he explained."
And here is the architect-designer Elora Hardy creates masterpiece residential bamboo art objects and believes that the future belongs to this natural material.
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