Front view of the Paper Log House. Credit: Michael Biondo
The Glass House, Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA), and The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union announce the completion of Shigeru Ban: The Paper Log House at The Glass House. Students from The Cooper Union joined in erecting the structure through a unique opportunity offered this semester for the university’s Building Technology course. The collaborative installation will be on display April 15th through December 15th 2024 for The Glass House’s more than 13,000 annual visitors.
View of Shigeru Ban’s Paper Log House in proximity to the iconic Glass House. Credit: Michael Biondo
Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban and led by SBA’s New York office, the construction process involved guiding 39 architecture students on fabricating and assembling the Paper Log House, a 13.5 foot by 13.5-foot enclosure made of paper tubes, wood, and milk crates. The Paper Log House has been deployed to provide temporary housing for victims of disaster across five continents over the last 30 years. Dean Maltz, Managing Partner for SBA’s projects in America, graduated from The Cooper Union with Shigeru Ban. He has seen the foundational ideas and seminal works of the prolific architect take shape, and oversaw the process of developing this collaboration from beginning to end with the rest of the team.
Starting at The Cooper Union in Manhattan in February 2024, the Paper Log House components were fabricated at the school over a period of 5 weeks, then transported by truck to the site in New Canaan. On March 18 and 19, 2024, under strong wind conditions and bitter cold temperatures, 17 students, faculty, and SBA staff assembled the structure in just fifteen hours over the two-day period.
A student threads nylon rope through a metal angle attached to the underside of the roof coping to tie down the waterproof tent membrane. Credit: Video still by Hudson Lines
Born out of his desire to not make waste, Shigeru Ban’s experiments with paper tubes began in 1985, and, since then, he has pioneered paper tube construction, elevating the humble material through installations, buildings, and disaster relief projects. Many relief projects, such as the 79-foot-tall Cardboard Cathedral in 2013, have gone on to become permanent fixtures in their communities. Exhibiting Shigeru Ban: The Paper Log House at The Glass House creates a unique opportunity to reflect on the permanence of architecture, and how disparate building materials, namely glass, brick and paper offer unexpected possibilities. Ban famously noted, “If a building is loved, it becomes permanent.”
Students slot preassembled sections of paper tube walls into crenelated base panels along the perimeter of the floor. Credit: Video still by Hudson Lines
Kirsten Reoch, Executive Director at The Glass House, said, “We are thrilled to present the work of Shigeru Ban Architects at The Glass House on our 75th anniversary. When the Glass House and Brick House were completed in 1949, Philip Johnson was just at the beginning of what would become an expansive campus filled with structures that continually pushed boundaries in design and materials over the course of more than 50 years. The Paper Log House continues this ethos of experimentation and innovation, turning Ban’s creative energy toward the solution of urgent social problems with recyclable and easily available materials.”
Known for his innovative use of paper and wood, architect, educator, and humanitarian Shigeru Ban [b. 1957] originally designed the Paper Log House in 1995 as a shelter for former Vietnamese refugees displaced by the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, Japan. Designed to be low cost and easy to assemble, Ban utilized paper tubes as the house’s primary building material because they are readily available, economical, and sustainable nearly anywhere in the world.
One of the world’s top architectural destinations, The Glass House
welcomes an audience of more than 13,000 visitors every year from Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, and Brazil, among others.
Commenting on the collaboration, Dean Maltz said, “From paper log houses to some of the world’s largest mass timber buildings, Shigeru Ban’s humanitarian approach to architecture is something I’ve seen expand from our early days as students at The Cooper Union. It was wonderful to collaborate with our alma mater and a next generation of designers on building the Paper Log House. Our New York-based team was thrilled to oversee the project with The Glass House’s team and supporters including our client Kentucky Owl.”
In creating buildings that are meaningful to and cared for by their communities, Shigeru Ban’s inventive work alongside The Glass House, challenges preconceived notions of permanence and material strength. Visitors will be able to consider the value of both historic preservation and permanence in glass and brick juxtaposed with temporary, recyclable, and movable structures made of paper and cardboard. In today’s world of mass migration, due to conflict and natural disasters, the public can see a simple solution for aiding those in need of immediate shelter.
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Press release and photos courtesy of The Glass House
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