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Tuesday: Group 06 SAID 127 Arts & Society • 2010 Sam Carl: Sustainability
John Davis: Description of the artifact
Megan Dziatkowicz: Production process
Ben Koontz: About the Architect
Stephanie Mueller: Problems the item addresses
Callie Svaan: History
Michael Varcarcel: presentation
Paper Log Houses designed by Shigeru Ban
The Paper Log Houses, designed by Shigeru Ban, were designed as part of a relief
effort in Kobe in 1995. The architect designed these houses to be very cheap, but
sturdy and able to safely house people in need. They are both waterproof and fire-‐
resistant, and therefore can function as short-‐ or long-‐term dwellings. When they
were first designed, they were intended simply to replace the existing tents that did
not provide very much shelter. Although people have been attempting for years to
build temporary homes for people in need that are both solid enough to live in, and
cheap to make and assemble, this particular design is the first of its kind. Because of
the houses strength and low cost, the architect or outside parties have not improved
on the original design.
Shigeru Ban is the inventor/designer of the paper log houses. He made these
houses as a cheap solution to the housing problem that was in Kobe after an
earthquake left many people living in very bad houses. The reason why he started to
uses paper, as a building material is that he “was interested in weak materials”.
Through his exploration of materials he came across paper and found out that it was
an easy material to work with and build cheap houses out of. Shigeru Ban is a
Japanese architect who is well known throughout the world for his many innovated
designs. Shigeru Ban studied architecture at the Southern California Institute of
Architecture and Cooper Union's School of Architecture. He is best known for
designing invisible structures. Invisible structures are buildings that incorporate the
building material directly into the design. Some of his other famous works include
Furniture House, Curtain wall house, Naked House, and Japanese Pavilion. In the
furniture house Ban used bamboo for the first time in contemporary housing and
was able to do it by laminating the lumber to turn it into a sufficient building
material. Paper log houses are not the only buildings that he has build that uses
paper; he has also made the paper dome, paper church, paper emergency shelters
and many more.
Shigeru Ban is famous for making
buildings out of sustainable
materials. The Paper Log Houses are
made out of cardboard tubes that are
106 millimeters in diameter and four
millimeters thick, beer crates,
sandbags, wood, plywood, steel rods,
tent material, and waterproof tape. A
requirement of the project was that
all materials were to be
prefabricated and that each home
was to be built on site. Each house
takes around six hours to assemble
with anywhere between one and
twenty people helping in the process.
The assembly of each building starts
from the ground and works up from
there. The base of each house is
crates filled with sand bags that help
hold the foundation in place. Next, a
plywood floor is lined long the edges
of the crates and plywood pegs are
placed around the outer perimeter.
The cardboard tubes that form the walls are slipped onto the pegs and sealed with
waterproof sponge tape. Steel rods that run horizontally for extra support hold the
tubes together. Atop of the tubes are plywood connections that hold the header,
which is the start of the roofing system. Diagonal supports are added to the sides of
the roofing system. Finally, a thick double-‐layered tent material covers the gabled
roof. Each unit is easily dismantled and all of the materials are recyclable: after
dismantling each home, the materials are sent to a recycling plant where the process
begins again.
Around 300,000 people were
displaced after the earthquake in
Kobe in 1995. Some of those
people were forced to live in
shabby, crowded, cramped tents
for a long time. Shigeru Ban
constructed paper loghouses so
that the refugees would not have
to live in those shabby cramped tents. There were so many people in need of homes,
so the paper loghouse is perfect for this situation because it can be easily
constructed by anyone. It can be quickly constructed because it is prominent
internationally, and can be made out of any type of paper product. Most people
were left with nothing, including money, and what is effective about the paper
loghouses is that it is cost effective. For the families who could not go back to their
homes the paper loghouses can be permanent houses with or without a kitchen and
a bathroom, even though it is made out of paper. The roof is made out of tent
material so that it can retain the heat of the houses during the winter, but allows air
circulation in the summer. But for those families who don’t want to live in these
houses forever, the paper loghouse can be easily dismantled and recycled, to help
the environment. Thanks to Shigeru Ban, the refugees did not have to worry about
shelter after the earthquake in 1995, because of the paper loghouse.
Shigeru Ban’s Log house is, not surprisingly, quite unconventional in terms of
materials and physical characteristics. The structures are only one story tall, and do
not need tremendous weight-‐bearing strength since they were only holding up
themselves and a small roof of cardboard materials. Therefore, Ban decided to
utilize relatively small diameter cardboard tubes as his main building material. The
Log House is constructed of walls of cardboard tubes, each tube having a diameter of
four and a half inches. Because ease of building was a higher priority than immense
strength, a thickness of four millimeters was chosen for the tubes. Because all the
building materials for the log houses had to be readily available, cheap items, beer
crates made by Kirin beer were used for the foundation of the houses. These crates,
ordinary beer containers, were chosen specifically because their color goes well
with that of the cardboard tubes, making for an acceptably pleasant overall color
scheme without the use of expensive or time-‐consuming paint. Contained within the
foundation crates are sandbags, which provide a heavy, stable mass to hold down
and “root” the houses to the ground.
For the houses’ floors and window frames, which must be of consistent
dimensions and surface, plywood was chosen as a strong, yet economical material.
With pegs fixed at its edges, the plywood floor, thirteen feet square, will readily
accept and hold the cardboard tubes which make up the walls, assisted by a small
quantity of quarter inch diameter steel rod to keep the tubes aligned. Waterproof
tape is applied at the building site in the seams between the cardboard tubes,
thereby effectively sealing the inside of the house, and its inhabitants, from the
elements. When little protection is needed, the gabled ends of the roof can be
opened, providing effective ventilation and airflow.
With the emphasis of the project being on economical building materials,
comfortable, utility-‐oriented housing, and quick build and teardown, Shigeru Ban
also strove for a pleasant appearance. He maintains that even though the log house
design is intended as a purely functional one, part of its functionality is in its having
a pleasant appearance. In addition, the structures are excellent in another area:
sustainability. Being constructed chiefly of paper, an easily recyclable natural
substance, the houses have virtually no adverse environmental impact. Indeed, all
the paper tubes can be recycled and become part of a new house, which means that
no net waste results from the walls and roof support system of the house, which
together make up a vast majority of its construction.
Shigeru Ban's paper houses signify a designer's ability to solve issues on a
societal and environmental level. His innovation allows for economic, communal,
and ecological improvements. The standing issue is that many people in
impoverished parts of the world either have no money to build homes, or there are
not enough resources readily available. In some cases, both of these dilemmas occur.
Ban's solution is obvious, yet genius. He is a pioneer in a new technology known
as paper-‐log construction. With this technology, houses can be built quickly and
inexpensively, without the need for large machinery or skilled workers. An example
of this method being put to use is the instance of the earthquake in Kobe, Japan in
1995 which left over three hundred thousand people without shelter. Even six
months after the earthquake, residents were still living in and around tents pitched
on top of the rubble of their old homes. With no real shelter and no means of
rebuilding their houses, things looked bleak. This is when Ban's design was really
able to show its true potential. Only 10 people are needed to erect the houses in less
than six hours, and the cost is less than two thousand dollars. All of the materials
needed were prefabricated and assembled on-‐site.
Ban also mentions the importance of
aesthetics in constructing homes for
these refugees. He says, “Refugee
shelter has to be beautiful.
Psychologically, refugees are damaged.
They have to stay in nice places.” The
houses are constructed out of 4½”
diameter cardboard tubes, stacked
vertically in neat, even rows. The houses also have working doors and windows
with operable shutters made of plywood. They have one hundred seventy-‐two
square feet of living space on the interior, enough for the resident's furnishings to
create a homely atmosphere. Because construction is so simple, the craft of the
structure is not an issue. The houses are built to look tidy and rigid, as well as
welcoming and quaint. Ban has even built a church capable of seating eighty people
using this method of construction.
These paper homes not only provide refugees with a place to live, but they also
have a light impact on the environment. All of the materials needed to build them
are made from recyclable matter. Though they are sturdy, when they are no longer
needed theses houses can be disassembled as quickly and easily as they were
erected, and all of the building materials can b recycled rather than sent to a landfill.
This is especially important within some nomadic cultures in which the people do
not live in one place for very long. Also, the paper tubes are lightweight and
therefore easy to transport in large quantities when needed. However since they are
usually made on-‐site, no gasoline needs to be used for transportation of the primary
material of these structures. Ban's design for paper homes proved to be so
economical and ecological in Kobe that more of these houses have been constructed
in Rwanda, Turkey, India, and the in coastal towns of Southeast Asia which have
been devastated by tropical storms.
Works Cited
• “Shigeru Ban: Paper Loghouse.” Designboom, 2010. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
http://www.designboom.com/history/ban_paper.html
• “Paper Log Houses.” Shigeru Ban Architects, 2010. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/SBA_WORKS/SBA_PAPER/SBA_PAPER_
6/SBA_paper_6.html
• Luscombe, Belinda. “He Builds With a Really Tough Material: Paper.” Time.com.
Architecture and Design. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/innovators/design/profile_ban.html
• “Paper Log House: Shigeru Ban.” MyWeb at Wentworth. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
http://myweb.wit.edu/kiml1/590fall05/web-‐content/chris.pdf