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Paper Log Houses Tuesday: Group 06 SAID 127 Arts & Society • 2010 Sam Carl: Sustainability John Davis: Description of the artifact Megan Dziatkowicz: Production process Ben Koontz: About the Architect Stephanie Mueller: Problems the item addresses Callie Svaan: History Michael Varcarcel: presentation Paper Log Houses designed by Shigeru Ban The Paper Log Houses, designed by Shigeru Ban, were designed as part of a relief effort in Kobe in 1995. The architect designed these houses to be very cheap, but sturdy and able to safely house people in need. They are both waterproof and fire- resistant, and therefore can function as short- or long-term dwellings. When they were first designed, they were intended simply to replace the existing tents that did not provide very much shelter. Although people have been attempting for years to build temporary homes for people in need that are both solid enough to live in, and cheap to make and assemble, this particular design is the first of its kind. Because of the houses strength and low cost, the architect or outside parties have not improved on the original design. Shigeru Ban is the inventor/designer of the paper log houses. He made these houses as a cheap solution to the housing problem that was in Kobe after an earthquake left many people living in very bad houses. The reason why he started to uses paper, as a building material is that he “was interested in weak materials”. Through his exploration of materials he came across paper and found out that it was an easy material to work with and build cheap houses out of. Shigeru Ban is a Japanese architect who is well known throughout the world for his many innovated designs. Shigeru Ban studied architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and Cooper Union's School of Architecture. He is best known for designing invisible structures. Invisible structures are buildings that incorporate the building material directly into the design. Some of his other famous works include Furniture House, Curtain wall house, Naked House, and Japanese Pavilion. In the furniture house Ban used bamboo for the first time in contemporary housing and was able to do it by laminating the lumber to turn it into a sufficient building material. Paper log houses are not the only buildings that he has build that uses paper; he has also made the paper dome, paper church, paper emergency shelters and many more. Shigeru Ban is famous for making buildings out of sustainable materials. The Paper Log Houses are made out of cardboard tubes that are 106 millimeters in diameter and four millimeters thick, beer crates, sandbags, wood, plywood, steel rods, tent material, and waterproof tape. A requirement of the project was that all materials were to be prefabricated and that each home was to be built on site. Each house takes around six hours to assemble with anywhere between one and twenty people helping in the process. The assembly of each building starts from the ground and works up from there. The base of each house is crates filled with sand bags that help hold the foundation in place. Next, a plywood floor is lined long the edges of the crates and plywood pegs are placed around the outer perimeter. The cardboard tubes that form the walls are slipped onto the pegs and sealed with waterproof sponge tape. Steel rods that run horizontally for extra support hold the tubes together. Atop of the tubes are plywood connections that hold the header, which is the start of the roofing system. Diagonal supports are added to the sides of the roofing system. Finally, a thick double-layered tent material covers the gabled roof. Each unit is easily dismantled and all of the materials are recyclable: after dismantling each home, the materials are sent to a recycling plant where the process begins again. Around 300,000 people were displaced after the earthquake in Kobe in 1995. Some of those people were forced to live in shabby, crowded, cramped tents for a long time. Shigeru Ban constructed paper loghouses so that the refugees would not have to live in those shabby cramped tents. There were so many people in need of homes, so the paper loghouse is perfect for this situation because it can be easily constructed by anyone. It can be quickly constructed because it is prominent internationally, and can be made out of any type of paper product. Most people were left with nothing, including money, and what is effective about the paper loghouses is that it is cost effective. For the families who could not go back to their homes the paper loghouses can be permanent houses with or without a kitchen and a bathroom, even though it is made out of paper. The roof is made out of tent material so that it can retain the heat of the houses during the winter, but allows air circulation in the summer. But for those families who don’t want to live in these houses forever, the paper loghouse can be easily dismantled and recycled, to help the environment. Thanks to Shigeru Ban, the refugees did not have to worry about shelter after the earthquake in 1995, because of the paper loghouse. Shigeru Ban’s Log house is, not surprisingly, quite unconventional in terms of materials and physical characteristics. The structures are only one story tall, and do not need tremendous weight-bearing strength since they were only holding up themselves and a small roof of cardboard materials. Therefore, Ban decided to utilize relatively small diameter cardboard tubes as his main building material. The Log House is constructed of walls of cardboard tubes, each tube having a diameter of four and a half inches. Because ease of building was a higher priority than immense strength, a thickness of four millimeters was chosen for the tubes. Because all the building materials for the log houses had to be readily available, cheap items, beer crates made by Kirin beer were used for the foundation of the houses. These crates, ordinary beer containers, were chosen specifically because their color goes well with that of the cardboard tubes, making for an acceptably pleasant overall color scheme without the use of expensive or time-consuming paint. Contained within the foundation crates are sandbags, which provide a heavy, stable mass to hold down and “root” the houses to the ground. For the houses’ floors and window frames, which must be of consistent dimensions and surface, plywood was chosen as a strong, yet economical material. With pegs fixed at its edges, the plywood floor, thirteen feet square, will readily accept and hold the cardboard tubes which make up the walls, assisted by a small quantity of quarter inch diameter steel rod to keep the tubes aligned. Waterproof tape is applied at the building site in the seams between the cardboard tubes, thereby effectively sealing the inside of the house, and its inhabitants, from the elements. When little protection is needed, the gabled ends of the roof can be opened, providing effective ventilation and airflow. With the emphasis of the project being on economical building materials, comfortable, utility-oriented housing, and quick build and teardown, Shigeru Ban also strove for a pleasant appearance. He maintains that even though the log house design is intended as a purely functional one, part of its functionality is in its having a pleasant appearance. In addition, the structures are excellent in another area: sustainability. Being constructed chiefly of paper, an easily recyclable natural substance, the houses have virtually no adverse environmental impact. Indeed, all the paper tubes can be recycled and become part of a new house, which means that no net waste results from the walls and roof support system of the house, which together make up a vast majority of its construction. Shigeru Ban's paper houses signify a designer's ability to solve issues on a societal and environmental level. His innovation allows for economic, communal, and ecological improvements. The standing issue is that many people in impoverished parts of the world either have no money to build homes, or there are not enough resources readily available. In some cases, both of these dilemmas occur. Ban's solution is obvious, yet genius. He is a pioneer in a new technology known as paper-log construction. With this technology, houses can be built quickly and inexpensively, without the need for large machinery or skilled workers. An example of this method being put to use is the instance of the earthquake in Kobe, Japan in 1995 which left over three hundred thousand people without shelter. Even six months after the earthquake, residents were still living in and around tents pitched on top of the rubble of their old homes. With no real shelter and no means of rebuilding their houses, things looked bleak. This is when Ban's design was really able to show its true potential. Only 10 people are needed to erect the houses in less than six hours, and the cost is less than two thousand dollars. All of the materials needed were prefabricated and assembled on-site. Ban also mentions the importance of aesthetics in constructing homes for these refugees. He says, “Refugee shelter has to be beautiful. Psychologically, refugees are damaged. They have to stay in nice places.” The houses are constructed out of 4½” diameter cardboard tubes, stacked vertically in neat, even rows. The houses also have working doors and windows with operable shutters made of plywood. They have one hundred seventy-two square feet of living space on the interior, enough for the resident's furnishings to create a homely atmosphere.
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