Since 2017, UN-Habitat, together with Shigeru Ban Architects, Philippe Monteil and the NGO Voluntary Architects' Network, developed several shelter typologies for a pilot neighborhood in Kalobeyei Settlement in Kenya. The Turkana Houses are meant to house South Sudanese and other refugees living in Northern Kenya who could not return to their original villages due to endless civil wars and conflicts. Unlike typical refugee shelters, these structures were meant to provide a home for long periods of displacement and the four typologies developed are informed by the extensive experience of Shigeru Ban Architects with disaster relief projects and the local building techniques of local people.
SANLIURFA, TURKEY - February 19, 2014: Aerial view of Akcakale Refugee Camp. Approximately 28.000 Syrian people reside in Akcakale Tent Camp in Urfa.. Image via Shutterstock/ By answer5
With more than 70 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, according to the UNHCR, and nearly 25.9 million refugees, the time has come to reconsider the traditional emergency camp approach. Although the concept is temporary by definition, in real life the lifespan of these refugee camps exceeds the planned and the expected.
Ranging from seven to seventeen years, most of these settlements surpass their expiry dates. Actually, on average, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya, "many displaced persons spend more than 16 years living as refugees in temporary shelter."
Last September, the EU launched the New European Bauhaus, an initiative designed to transform the built environment into a more sustainable one with higher social value. The project, shaped through an unprecedented co-design process, is now calling for architects, students, specialists, and citizens to share ideas, examples and challenges to help define the movement's concrete steps.
Shigeru Ban, Pritzker Prize-winner, and Ole Scheeren, RIBA silver medalist, were appointed for the Hangzhou Wangjiang New Town master plan. Creating new art and cultural destination in the historical city, the project in collaboration with New World Development and K11 Group seeks to build a landmark that meets the needs of the new generation.
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.
Jarahieh Refugee School. Image Courtesy of CatalyticAction
For the past few months, the architecture community has been trying to bring its contribution to the fight against the pandemic. The global spread of this crisis might have triggered a coordinated, and thus a more visible effort, but this isn’t the first time professionals step up in crises. Over the years, natural disasters and emergencies have determined several architects to get involved in disaster relief initiatives, as well as a wide range of humanitarian actions. In this article, we take a look at different occasions various architects and practices made a significant contribution to, helping affected communities overcome hardship.
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.
Originally published in Metropolis Magazine as "Inside the Homes and Workspaces of 8 Great Architects", this article shows the spaces occupied by some of the best-known architects in the world. Documented for an exhibition that will be featured at the Milan Design Week 2014, the images give a glimpse inside the private worlds of some of our favorite designers.
It's a cliche that architects have messy workspaces. From chaos comes creation, so the phrase goes. But an upcoming exhibition at this year's Salone del Mobile intends to dispel the myth. Studio Mumbai.
Curator Francesca Molteni interviewed each of the designers in their private homes and came away with one finding: architects are actually quite tidy. The studios are all pristinely ordered; books are neatly stowed away, figurines and objets astutely displayed, and table tops swept clean. The photographs below are part of the exhibition materials, produced with the help of scenographer Davide Pizzigoni, which faithfully document the physical environments in images, video, and audio. These will be used to recreate the architects’ “rooms” at Salone del Mobile in April.
Where Architects Live is not limited to satisfying our curiosity about what these architects’ homes look like. Richard Rogers’ affirmation that “a room is the beginning of a city” resonates with the project’s aim in trying to articulate its subjects’ personal tastes and obsessions, and how those are reflected in their architectural work.
Read on to see more images of the inside of architects' homes and studios
Milano Arch Week has published details of their 2019 event, hosting a week of lectures, conversations, workshops, and itineraries on the main challenges of contemporary urban transformation. Running from 21st to the 26th May 2019, Milano Arch Week “explores the future of architecture and cities through a polyphony of voices; architects, urban planners, landscape designers, scientists, philosophers, artists, and curators from all over the world.”
https://www.archdaily.com/917130/milano-arch-week-publishes-program-featuring-talks-by-stefano-boeri-and-rem-koolhaasNiall Patrick Walsh
Cardboard tubes are so commonplace that we may no longer even notice them. Yet they are everywhere: in a roll of toilet paper, in the packaging of the college diploma, in fireworks, and in the tissue and paper industries. And now, more and more, they can be found in unusual places, such as on the walls of houses and buildings. The material is part of modern life and is being produced for a multitude of industrial applications and consumer products. The vast majority are used as structural cores in winding operations. Immediately after manufacturing, paper, film or textiles are rolled directly onto cardboard tubes resulting in a stable roll that is easily stored and transported.
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.
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.
Last week, Mexico received a visit from 2014 Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban, who, following September’s devastating earthquakes, reached out to the country in order to offer support through his experience with humanitarian projects.
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.”
Photographer duo Luc Boegly & Sergio Grazia have released a new photo series capturing the Seine Musicale, which recently opened its doors. Designed as a partnership itself between architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines, the mixed-use music and cultural center is located in Paris’ western Boulogne-Billancourt suburb. The project is the latest feature in the site’s Island Master Plan designed by Jean Nouvel. Features include a multi-purpose concert hall seating 4,000, a classical music call seating 1,150, rehearsal and recording rooms and an outdoor park area for visitors and practicing musicians.
For centuries before the invention of screws and fasteners, Japanese craftsmen used complex, interlocking joints to connect pieces of wood for structures and beams, helping to create a uniquely Japanese wood aesthetic that can still be seen in the works of modern masters like Shigeru Ban.
Up until recent times, however, these techniques were often the carefully guarded secrets of family carpentry guilds and unavailable for public knowledge. Even as the joints began to be documented in books and magazines, their 2-dimensional depictions remained difficult to visualize and not found in any one comprehensive source.
That is, until a few years ago, when a young Japanese man working in automobile marketing began compiling all the wood joinery books he could get his hands on and using them to creating his own 3-dimensional, animated illustrations of their contents.
