The Paper Log House at The Glass House. Photo by Michael Biondo.

The building in the background of the photo above has never featured in any of our architecture-focused posts before, even though architecture has been a key theme since our start, and especially after hosting these interns in India. I know why I never wanted that particular architect in our pages, but nevermind that. This post is about another architect’s achievement, which I plan to visit if I get close enough before December:

SHIGERU BAN: THE PAPER LOG HOUSE

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.

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. Dean oversaw the process of constructing the Paper Log House from beginning to end, together with The Glass House and The Cooper Union.

Starting at The Cooper Union in Manhattan, 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.

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.”…

Read more about it in this article.