Hasta La Ideas

News: young architects are becoming disillusioned with commercial work and instead turning to humanitarian projects, according to 2014 Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban (+ interview).

Natural disasters such as the Japanese tsunami are “really changing” the way young architects think, Ban believes, encouraging them to use their skills for humanitarian causes.

“When I was a student everyone was working for big developers to make big buildings,” Ban said. “And now there are many students and younger architects who are asking to join my team, to open programs in disaster areas.”

He added: “It’s really changing. I’m really encouraged.”

Ban made the comments to journalists at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, where he was taking part in the Where Architects Live installation.

Architectural culture is “moving in two directions”, he told Dezeen, as a new breed of younger architects turn away from urban work, where architects had ceded control to developers.

“Now cities are being made by developers, not architects, or not urban planners. They’re made by developers. So one way is this but many people are interested in working for society also.”

Ban is well known for his humanitarian work, creating temporary shelters from cardboard-based structures in disaster zones around the world.

His first paper-tube buildings were used to provide temporary homes for Vietnamese refugees after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. He has since created emergency shelters in India, Taiwan, Haiti and Japan as well as a cardboard cathedral for earthquake-hit Christchurch in New Zealand.

This work helped him secure the 2014 Pritzker Prize, which is widely regarded as the highest honour in world architecture.

Announcing the award last month, Pritzker Prize jury chairman Peter Palumbo said: “Shigeru Ban is a force of nature, which is entirely appropriate in the light of his voluntary work for the homeless and dispossessed in areas that have been devastated by natural disasters.”

Ban has also realised a number of arts projects including the Centre Pompidou Metz in France and his Aspen Art Museum is due to complete this summer.

The Where Architects Live exhibition in Milan focuses features a series of installations based on the domestic environments of nine eminent designers, based in eight different cities, including Ban, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid and David Chipperfield.

Here’s a transcript of the conversation between Ban, Dezeen and other journalists at the Salone del Mobile:

Journalist: Do you work a lot on projects for refugees?

Shigeru Ban: Yes with natural disasters. Yes almost every year some disaster. Now I’m working in the Philippines after the big typhoon there last year.

Journalist: What are you doing there?

Shigeru Ban: Building temporary housing there.

Journalist: What can you advise to young architects?

Shigeru Ban: You know, I really recognise when I give lectures to many different places in the countries, when I was a student everyone was working for big developers to make big buildings. And now there are many students and younger architects who are asking to join my team, to open programs in disaster areas, it’s really changing. I’m really encouraged by all the young architects and students.

Marcus Fairs: Is that just in Japan that it’s changing?

Shigeru Ban: No, no, no everywhere. Everywhere I got to give lectures many students are interested in what I’m doing and they want to join me and my team, it’s really encouraging.

Marcus Fairs: So you think there’s a shift in the world of architecture maybe?

Shigeru Ban: I think so, I really think so.

Marcus Fairs: Towards helping people more?

Shigeru Ban: Maybe not shifting but [moving in] two directions. Because now cities are being made by developers, not architects, or not urban planners. They’re made by developers. So one way is this but many people are interested in working for society also.

Marcus Fairs: So there’s new opportunities for architects to be more human, to be more helpful?

Shigeru Ban: Yes because unfortunately there are so many natural disasters destroying the housing, destroying the buildings so there are many opportunities for us.

Marcus Fairs: And in Japan did the tsunami change the attitudes?

Shigeru Ban: Yes, over 500km of coastline was totally damaged. Now the recovery is quite slow because they have to reclaim the land higher to prevent the next tsunami. So also changing of zoning to put residential areas on top of the mountains, so it’s a very slow process. But it’s the first time, even in Japan, that they’re facing such a big problem.

Marcus Fairs: So are a lot of humanitarian architects working to solve the problem?

Shigeru Ban: Yes many architects are now working in that field, yes.

The post Architectural culture is “moving in two directions”
says Shigeru Ban appeared first on Dezeen.

Shigeru Ban‘s design for an art gallery opening this summer in Aspen, Colorado, has been demonstrated by a new architectural model, following news that the Japanese architect will receive this year’s Pritzker Prize (+ slideshow).

Set to open on 9 August, the new Aspen Art Museum will be a four-storey building containing six separate galleries, more than tripling the amount of exhibition space in the museum’s current facility.

Shigeru Ban designed the 3000 square-metre building for a site at the corner of East Hyman Avenue in downtown Aspen. Its primary feature will be a basket-weave cladding that wraps around two elevations.

A grand staircase will be slotted between this woven exterior and the interior structure. There will also be a glass elevator dubbed the “moving room” that will connect galleries at the northeast corner.

Glass floors will allow visitors to see between storeys, while a sculpture garden located on the roof will offer views towards Ajax Mountain.

The inaugural exhibition will feature the work of artists Yves Klein and David Hammons, but the museum also plans to host an exhibition dedicated to Shigeru Ban’s humanitarian housing projects.

Here’s some more information about the gallery from Aspen Art Museum:

The New Aspen Art Museum

Located on the corner of South Spring Street and East Hyman Avenue in Aspen’s downtown core a few blocks from Aspen’s main skiing/snowboarding mountain, Ajax Mountain, the new AAM is Shigeru Ban’s first U.S. museum. Of its design, Ban states: “Designing the Aspen Art Museum presented a very exciting opportunity to create a harmony between architecture and Aspen’s surrounding beauty while also responding to the need for the dialogue between artwork, audience, and the space itself.”

Ban’s vision for the new AAM is based on transparency and open view planes—inviting those outside to engage with the building’s interior, and providing those within the opportunity to see their exterior surroundings as part of a uniquely Aspen Art Museum experience. The new Museum features 12,500 square feet of flexible exhibition space in six primary gallery spaces spread over the museum’s four levels – more than tripling the amount of exhibition space in the museum’s current facility. The galleries have a ceiling height of fourteen feet, most infused with natural light.

Visitors will enter the new AAM through a main public entry on the north side of the building along East Hyman Avenue, which allows access to the main reception area, as well as the new AAM’s two ground floor galleries. From there, visitors may choose their path through museum spaces -ascending to upper levels either via Ban’s “moving room” glass elevator in the northeast corner of the new facility, or the grand staircase on the east side of the facility perpendicular to South Spring Street. The grand staircase – an interstitial three-level passageway situated between the building’s woven composite exterior grid and interior structure – is intersected by a glass wall dividing the stairway into a ten-foot-wide exterior space, and a six-foot-wide interior space. The unique passage allows for the natural blending of outdoor and indoor spaces and will feature mobile pedestals where art will be exhibited.

After climbing the grand staircase to the roof deck sculpture garden, visitors will enjoy unparalleled, sweeping vistas of Aspen’s internationally recognised environment. This will be the only unobstructed public rooftop view anywhere in town of the iconic Ajax Mountain. The roof deck will also be an activated exhibition and event space, with a café and bar and outdoor screening space. Shigeru Ban envisioned that visitors would navigate the new AAM the way a mountain is navigated when skiing or snowboarding – by proceeding to the very top of the building and descending from floor to floor.

Other features of the museum’s architecture include: “walkable” skylights that will assist in illuminating the single main gallery on the second level; two galleries, an education space, bookstore/museum shop and on-site artist apartment on the ground floor; and, on the new AAM’s lower level, three galleries, art storage, and art preparation spaces.

The post Architectural model demonstrates
Shigeru Ban’s new Aspen Art Museum appeared first on Dezeen.

This timber house in Kanagawa by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has a square plan with a teardrop-shaped courtyard at its centre (+ slideshow).

Shigeru Ban planned the single-storey Villa at Sengokubara with a radial arrangement, creating a sequence of rooms that each face inwards towards the central courtyard.

The roof of the house angles gently inward, creating a canopy around the perimeter of the courtyard, and it varies in height to create lower ceilings at the building’s entrance.

Timber columns and roof joists are exposed inside the building, and line the ceilings and rear walls of every room.

Spaced wooden slats form partitions and doorways between some rooms, allowing views between spaces.

A wooden staircase leads to a mezzanine level beneath the highest section of the room, which looks out over the main living and dining room.

Two study rooms are tucked away behind, while the kitchen and main bedrooms are positioned just beyond.

A sheltered terrace separates this side of the house from a guest suite containing two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Here’s a short description from the architects:

Sengokubara S Residence

The 2‐storey wood structure residence is situated on a flag pole shaped site, 30m square in plan with a 15m diameter interior courtyard.

With the main living room centred on the interior courtyard, all spaces are arranged in a radial manner from the entrance.

The eight sliding doors separating the main living room and interior courtyard can be opened at any time so that the space can be used as one.

The structure is made up of wooden columns and beams, which are 75mm x 350mm L‐shaped pieces, also arranged in a radial manner, creating a large one way sloped roof.

The large roof varies in height, achieving ceiling heights between 2.4m to 7.5m.

Location: Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan
Architects: Shigeru Ban Architects
Project Team: Shigeru Ban, Nobutaka Hiraga, Wataru Sakaki, Jun Matsumori
Structural engineers: Hoshino Structural Engineering
General contractors Hakone Construction
Principal use: residence
Site area: 1770.00m2
Building area: 576.89m2
Total floor area: 452.60m2
Structure: timber
Number of storeys: 2

The post Villa at Sengokubara
by Shigeru Ban appeared first on Dezeen.

News: the Cardboard Cathedral designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban opens to the public today in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The building was designed by Shigeru Ban as a temporary replacement for the city’s former Anglican cathedral, which was destroyed by the earthquake that struck the city in February 2011. With an expected lifespan of around 50 years, it will serve the community until a more permanent cathedral can be constructed.

The building features a triangular profile constructed from 98 equally sized cardboard tubes. These surround a coloured glass window made from tessellating triangles, decorated with images from the original cathedral’s rose window.

The main hall has the capacity to accommodate up to 700 people for events and concerts, plus eight steel shipping containers house chapels and storage areas below.

The cathedral had initially been scheduled to open in February, but was subject to a series of construction delays. The first service will now be held on Sunday 11 August.

The reconstruction of the permanent cathedral building has been a controversial topic in recent months, after critics rejected two contemporary designs and called for the building to be restored to its original gothic appearance. The selected design has yet to be announced.

Shigeru Ban has used cardboard on a number of pavilions and structures in recent years, particularly on disaster relief projects. Other examples include a temporary gallery in Moscow with cardboard columns and a cardboard pavilion at the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid.

Dezeen interviewed Shigeru Ban back in 2009, when he explained that he considers “green design” to be just a fashion, but that he is most interested in “using materials without wasting”.

See more architecture by Shigeru Ban »
See more cardboard architecture and design »
See more stories about New Zealand »

The post Shigeru Ban completes Cardboard Cathedral
in Christchurch appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban developed these timber and earth houses for the rehabilitation of a Sri Lankan fishing village that was swept away during the 2004 tsunami (+ slideshow).

Developer Phillip Bay asked Shigeru Ban to design a prototype house that could be built cheaply using local materials and would be suitable for the tropical climate. The house was to form a template for the construction of 100 replacement homes in Kirinda.

“This was not going to be a traditional disaster relief effort where we go in and make homes really fast and leave,” said Bay. “I wanted to treat this like a development project.”

Ban’s design comprises a single-storey structure with walls made from compressed earth blocks and a pitched roof made from locally sourced teak and coconut wood.

Each house has two bedrooms, a hall and a sheltered courtyard, which residents can use as a dining room, social space or simply as a place to repair fishing nets.

Adaptable wooden screens divide the rooms, to suit a Muslim lifestyle. “This is the first time I’ve worked for the Muslim societies,” said Ban, “so before I built the houses I had a community meeting to find out what has to be carefully done depending on the generation, for example, we had to separate the man’s space and woman’s space.”

Ban also designed furniture for the residence, using wood from the rubber trees that are common to the region.

The Post-Tsunami Housing was completed in 2007 but was recently named as one of 20 projects on the shortlist for the Aga Khan Award 2013. Other projects on the shortlist include an Islamic cemetery in Austria and a reconstructed refugee camp in Lebanon. Five or six finalists will be revealed later this year and will compete to win the $1 million prize.

Shigeru Ban has also worked on a number of other disaster-relief projects. He devised apartment blocks made from shipping containers for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 and was one of several high-profile architects involved in the Make It Right housing project in New Orleans. See more architecture by Shigeru Ban.

Photography is by Dominic Samsoni.

Here’s a project description from the Aga Khan Award organisers:

Post-Tsunami Housing

This project provides 100 houses in a Muslim fishing village, in the region of Tissamaharama, on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, following the destruction caused by the 2004 tsunami. Shigeru Ban’s aim was to adapt the houses to their climate, to use local labour and materials to bring profit to the region, and to respond to the villagers’ own requirements through direct consultation. For example, kitchens and bathrooms are included within each house, as requested by the villagers, but a central covered area separates them from the living accommodation, as stipulated by the government. The covered area also provides an entertainment space from which women can retreat to maintain privacy. Local rubber-tree wood was used for partitions and fittings, and compressed earth blocks for walls.

Location: Kirinda, Sri Lanka (Asia)
Architect: Shigeru Ban Architects, Tokyo, Japan
Client: Philip Bay
Completed: 2007
Design: 2005
Site size: 71 m2 for each house – Total site area: 3’195 m²

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by Shigeru Ban appeared first on Dezeen.