2014 Pritzker Laureate Shigeru Ban may be as well known for his innovative use of materials as for his compassionate approach to design. For a little over three decades, Ban, the founder of the Voluntary Architects Network, has applied his extensive knowledge of recyclable materials, particularly paper and cardboard, to constructing high-quality, low-cost shelters for victims of disaster across the world —from Rwanda to Haiti, to Turkey, Japan, and more. We've rounded up 10 projects of his humanitarian work, explained by Shigeru Ban Architects themselves.
Grafton Architects. Image Courtesy of Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas
Selected from 69 submissions from 10 countries, six international firms were shortlisted for the design competition of the future Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas.
Shigeru Ban Architects have been selected to a new 420-acre campus for the owners of Kentucky Owl Bourbon just south of Louisville, Kentucky. The new project will convert the former Cedar Creek Quarry into a distillery, bottling center, and rickhouses. Working with landscape architects Design Workshop from Denver and Earthscape from Tokyo, the $150 million project will be built with three timber pyramids housing the distillery at the center of the development. The new plans come after Stoli Group purchased the Kentucky Owl brand in 2017.
ArchDaily and Airbnb were both founded in 2008, but for two very different reasons. Since then, ArchDaily has amassed a vast database of tens of thousands of buildings, located in cities and countries all around the world. Meanwhile, Airbnb has revolutionized the way in which we explore these countries, and use these buildings, even if just for one night.
This week we have prepared a selection of photographs in which reflections in water is used as the main compositional element. In these images, the surface qualities of the water play a fundamental role in giving the composition its final effect—either acting as a perfect mirror or giving a diffuse touch. Below is a selection of 10 images from prominent photographers such as Lu Hengzhong, Yao Li, and Nico Saieh.
Shigeru Ban (born August 5th 1957) is a Japanese architect who won the 2014 Pritzker Prize for his significant contributions in architectural innovation and philanthropy. His ability to re-apply conventional knowledge in differing contexts has resulted in a breadth of work that is characterized by structural sophistication and unconventional techniques and materials. Ban has used these innovations not only to create beautiful architecture but as a tool to help those in need, by creating fast, economical, and sustainable housing solutions for the homeless and the displaced. As the Pritzker jury cites: “Shigeru Ban is a tireless architect whose work exudes optimism.”
Ban, along with members of the VAN and student volunteers, is constructing a partition system in evacuation centers made from paper tubes and cloth curtains. The temporary structures intend to offer privacy for flooding victims, forming a modular unit of 2 meters by 2 meters.
A new set of renderings has been released the Shigeru Ban Architects’ Terrace House development in Vancouver, revealing the interiors of the residential building for the first time. Being developed by PortLiving, the project will utilize an innovative hybrid timer structural system. When completed, it will become the tallest hybrid timber structure in the world.
Pritzker Prize winning architect Shigeru Ban has signed an agreement with UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency tasked with guiding sustainable development, to design up to 20,000 new homes for refugees in Kenya’s Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement. Currently home to more than 37,000 refugees, the settlement is quickly outgrowing its original capacity of 45,000 – over 17,000 have arrived this year alone, with numbers expected to continue to increase.
“The key thing will be to design and construct shelter where no or little technical supervision is required, and use materials that are locally available and eco-friendly. It’s important that the houses can be easily maintained by inhabitants.”
Terrace House (behind) with the Evergreen Building in the foreground. Image Courtesy of PortLiving
The design of the world’s tallest hybrid timber building, by Shigeru Ban Architects, has been revealed by Vancouver-based developer PortLiving. Named “Terrace House,” the project will be located in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighborhood, adjacent to the landmark-listed Evergreen Building, designed by late architect Arthur Erickson. The design of the “Terrace House” pays tribute to its neighbor, picking up the architectural language of triangular shapes, natural materials, and an abundance of greenery.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) have named 18 architectural and interior projects as recipients of the 2017 Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition for excellence in design.
According to the AIA, “the 2017 Architecture program celebrates the best contemporary architecture regardless of budget, size, style, or type. These stunning projects show the world the range of outstanding work architects create and highlight the many ways buildings and spaces can improve our lives.”
The awarded projects were selected from nearly 700 submissions. The winners will be honored at the 2017 AIA National Convention in Orlando.
The Arkansas Arts Center has selected five top architecture firms to compete for the design of a $55 million to $65 million museum expansion project in Little Rock, Arkansas. The project will include a renovation to existing theater and studio spaces, as well as new education facilities for families and gallery space to house the museum’s expanding art collection.
An advisory panel and selection committee named the finalists following a RFQ process featuring 23 local and international firms.
Shigeru Ban Architects has released images of their first emergency shelter prototype designed for Nepal. Planned to be built by the end of August, the simple shelter is designed to be easily assembled by almost anyone. Using connecting modular wooden frames (3ft x 7ft or 90cm x 210cm), salvaged rubble bricks are used to infill the wall's cavities while paper tube trussing supports the roof. This, as Shigeru Ban says, will allow for "quick erection and nearly immediate inhabitation."
Shigeru Ban Architects, together with the Voluntary Architects' Network (VAN), has announced plans to send emergency shelter, housing and other community facilitates to the victims of Nepal's deadly April 25th earthquake. As part of a three-phase plan, Shigeru Ban will first delivery and assemble tents with plastic partitions acquired though donation to provide immediate shelter. A few months after, the Japanese practice will collaborate with local architects and students to build temporary housing with materials found prevalent in Nepal.
Permanent housing will also be provided in the architect-led recovery plan's third phase, although little details have been released. However, you canhelp make it happenby donating to Shigeru Ban's efforts (here).
Watch Shigeru Ban's TED Talk on paper emergency structures, after the break.
He may have risen to prominence for his disaster relief architecture and deft use of recyclable materials, but Shigeru Ban describes his idiosyncratic use of material as an "accident." Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the 2014 Pritzker Prize Laureate recalls turning to cardboard tubes as a matter of necessity. "I had to create a design for an exhibition," Ban told the newspaper, "But I couldn't afford wood. Instead, I used the many paper tubes from rolls of drafting paper that were lying around. The tubes turned out to be quite strong." The most prominent of Ban's cardboard tube structures is Christchurch'sCardboard Cathedral, built in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastated the city in early 2011. Read WSJ's full interview with Ban here.
With our annual Building of the Year Awards, over 30,000 readers narrowed down over 3,000 projects, selecting just 14 as the best examples of architecture that ArchDaily has published in the past year. The results have been celebrated and widely shared, of course, usually in the form of images of each project. But what is often forgotten in this flurry of image sharing is that every one of these 14 projects has a backstory of significance which adds to our understanding of their architectural quality.
Some of these projects are intelligent responses to pressing social issues, others are twists on a well-established typology. Others still are simply supreme examples of architectural dexterity. In order that we don't forget the tremendous amount of effort that goes into creating each of these architectural masterpieces, continue reading after the break for the 14 stories that defined this year's Building of the Year Awards.
After two weeks of nominations and voting, we are pleased to present the winners of the 2015 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. As a peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award, the results shown here represent the collective intelligence of 31,000 architects, filtering the best architecture from over 3,000 projects featured on ArchDaily during the past year.
The winning buildings represent a diverse group of architects, from Pritzker Prize winners such as Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and Shigeru Ban, to up-and-coming practices such as EFFEKT and Building which have so far been less widely covered by the media. In many cases their designs may be the most visually striking, but each also approaches its context and program in a unique way to solve social, environmental or economic challenges in communities around the world. By publishing them on ArchDaily, these buildings have helped us to impart inspiration and knowledge to architects around the world, furthering our mission. So to everyone who participated by either nominating or voting for a shortlisted project, thank you for being a part of this amazing process, where the voices of architects from all over the world unite to form one strong, intelligent, forward-thinking message.
Pritzker laureate Shigeru Ban has won an international competition to design the future Tainan Museum of Fine Arts. With an agenda to promote arts culture and tourism in Taiwan’s cultural capital, the museum will foster the research of arts, literature and history, while exhibiting local talent.
Cascading volumes featuring an auditorium, classrooms and exhibition galleries will be capped with a pentagonal roof canopy and softened with lush terraces and landscaping. An outdoor sculpture park and public recreation area will allow the museum’s inner contents to bleed into its surroundings and activate the city.
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