Accident and design

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions: after the initial idealism, the old cynical way of doing things tends to reassert itself. But this year’s winner of architecture’s version of the Nobel prize would seem to be an exception to this rule. In 1994 Shigeru Ban became involved in the relief effort for Rwandan refugees. For the last twenty years he has been trying to help wherever his skills might prove useful. The route his work has taken him is also an itinerary of recent catastrophes: Turkey, India, China, Italy, Haiti and his homeland Japan, parts of which were devastated by the tsunami of 2011. Ban has also been on hand wherever creativity and an unconventional approach has been needed in order to solve some of the basic existential problems of the people who have suffered as a result of such cataclysms. One of his ideas was to use the cardboard tubes and containers used for sea transport to build shelters. Thanks to the utilisation of such materials, disaster victims were provided with decent living conditions. Since then he has become famous around the world and eventually a shoo-in for the Pritzker Prize.
It was not so obvious at first that his destiny would lie in architecture. As a child Ban did not plan on becoming a designer. He was fascinated by the work of the carpenters employed by his parents to renovate their family home and decided he wanted to follow in their footsteps. It was only in high school that he decided to become an architect, even though these plans had to compete with his other passion. He was an avid rugby player at school and only learnt how to draw after his training sessions on the pitch. He wanted to combine his two passions but ultimately gave up on a rugby career and devoted himself entirely to preparing to study for an architecture degree, which he finally started in the United States. He studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and at Cooper Union in New York. Having completed his studies he returned to Tokyo in 1985 to open his own architectural studio (he now has three: in Tokyo, Paris and New York). Since the beginning of his career he has been fascinated by wood, bamboo and paper as materials that can be used in architecture. In the initial period of his practice he created concepts for houses on stilts, a house with a double roof, a house without walls, a naked house and other designs that he is now associated with. His unconventional approach to the structure, material and function of buildings is his trademark these days. Some call his architecture environmentally-friendly. Ban takes these opinions with a pinch of salt. “When I started working in this way thirty years ago nobody thought about the environment. However, such an approach to my work was something that was obvious for me. I have always been interested in low costs and local, multiple-use materials,” he explains. Still, his projects fit in perfectly with sustainable building trends. The new head office of Swiss media group Tamedia in Zurich, which was completed last year, is one particularly impressive example of this. The frame of the building is constructed of wooden elements, while the façade is entirely made of glass, which makes low energy loss levels possible. Ban’s studio is working on an equally (or perhaps an even more) interesting design right now. This is Water Towers – three pairs of ‘twin towers’ that form part of the HafenCity project in Hamburg. The design would be nothing unusual if it were not for the fact that the finishing and the external structures of each building will be made from different materials: concrete, steel and... wood. Does Shigeru Ban have anything else up his sleeve? We should certainly expect more unique projects, particularly considering what he said after being awarded the Pritzker Prize: “I must continue to listen to the people I work for in my private residential commissions and in my disaster relief work. I see this prize as an encouragement for me to keep doing what I am doing – not to change what I am doing, but to grow.”