Throughout
history, war, natural disasters and political uncertainty have all caused significant needs for temporary housing. The displacement of large
populations for economic reasons such as wartime work
camps or the need to quickly restore shelter in difficult conditions encouraged the development of mobile housing
systems. In architecture, these turbulent
conditions seem to create productive
conditions to explore and innovate. Alavar
Aalto’s emergency shelters, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Deployment Units or
Herbert Yates’ plydom houses speak to an illustrious body
of architectural work and knowledge
that stemmed from hardship and contributed to forging modern architecture's social origins.
The work of Shigeru Ban displays this modern
heritage of invention through need. Shigeru
Ban is a Japanese born architect who
studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and Cooper Union
in the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s. His interest in housing systems was inspired by his modernist ingrained education and a reverence for John Hejduk’s experimental houses. Moreover
his consideration of relatively cheap, ready made and raw materials informed his
designs for simple, quickly assembled post disaster dwellings.
His use
of vertical cardboard struts for the Paper Log Houses
showcased the paper tubing as a modestly transformed and manufactured material
characterized by its low embodied energy and its versatility. The 16 meter square floor area shelter relates
Ban’s design to other small house experiments such as the Daiwa midget house in
Japan or the Australian iron houses. Both strived to offer significant shelter swiftly
with relatively new production methods.
Designed for
disaster relief following the earthquake in Kobe in 1995, the paper log houses
displayed new methodologies, which were then applied to other functions.
Shigeru Ban’s paper house, paper church and Rwandan emergency shelters employed
similar cardboard struts sealed to resist inclement weather. Waterproofing films, polyurethane and acrylic paints can be used to improve cardboard’s
material properties, allowing it to become a durable and low cost option for
construction. The transient nature of disaster dwelling lends itself to this
type of material investigation. Along with his
paper log prototypes, his other experiments such
as the furniture houses attempt to rationalize living spaces, offer functional
agility and express simple and straightforward construction techniques.
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| Paper Log Houses |
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