Shigeru Ban

Shigeru Ban (b.1957), based in Japan, is a rising star among world-class architects. This book features 32 of Ban's most exemplary projects of the past 10 years, divided into 5 sections based on the primary materials or construction principle used: Paper, Wood, Bamboo, Prefabrication, and Skin. Each project is documented with color photographs, plans, drawings, and a brief, straightforward project description. In addition, the book contains four sections of 'experimental data,' or technical information, printed in red and black on gray tinted paper. These sections gather diagrams, tables, sketches, and explanatory text to document the numerous tests that Ban's office has made over the years to study the strength, performance, and structural potential of his materials. A foreword by the distinguished German architect Frei Otto, with whom Ban has collaborated for several years, introduces the book. Also included is an essay by Shigeru Ban about his work with Otto on the Japan Pavilion.

The ideas and works set out in this richly photographed monograph of Shigeru Ban's architectural practice make a substantial contribution to the construction of a new vision for world of architecture and society in the 21st century.

Beginning with his pioneering designs for United Nations refugee shelters in the mid-1990s, 2014 Pritzker winning architect Shigeru Ban has devoted himself to humanitarian efforts in the wake of some of the most devastating natural and manmade disasters of the past two decades. With projects jointly selected by Ban and AAM Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, and the exhibition design done by the architect himself, Shigeru Ban: Humanitarian Architecture broadly explores this fascinating and inspiring component of the architect's practice with full-scale examples of Ban's groundbreaking designs.

Designed and constructed with the precision of a Swiss watch, this monumental hybrid timber campus charts an architectural roadmap toward the future. Completed in 2019, the Swatch and Omega Campus in Biel (Bienne), Switzerland, is a magnificent example of technology, design, and environmental sustainability working in concert to create a space that promotes the health of users and the planet. This book illustrates every aspect of the project, including drawings, plans, and numerous interior and exterior photographs. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban has experienced firsthand the trauma of natural disasters, which he has addressed in numerous emergency-relief projects. With the Swatch and Omega campus, Ban demonstrates how sustainable architecture can benefit industry as well, and why he promotes timber as the planet's only truly renewable resource. Philip Jodidio introduces readers to the buildings' ingenious and cutting-edge features--a serpentine, cocoon-like facade that echoes the playful elements of the Swatch brand; a gridshell roof structure consisting of thousands of precisely interlocking timber pieces. The Omega buildings with their clean straight lines are equally innovative and express the contrast between the two related brands. A feat of forward-thinking architecture, this corporate headquarters represents a benchmark for future building projects around the world.

From a cardboard cathedral to emergency shelters in paper tubing, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban has made his name with a restlessly inventive response to material and situation. This book presents the architect's most important projects to date and introduces a career defined by exploration, poetic expression, and humanitarian...

What role does architecture play in the face of natural disaster? What sort of ideas and what sort of materials be used to restart a community? How can the new draw from the old? One of the world's leading architects, Shigeru Ban, has confronted those issues in the wake of natural disasters around the globe. In 2012, he is working in Christchurch to build his largest structure ever--a 'Cardboard Cathedral' to stand in for the cathedral at Christchurch's heart, which suffered devastating damage in the 2011 earthquake. Ban is the most important international architect to have worked in New Zealand and the building will be or enormous local and international interest. Written by architect and leading scholar of Japanese architecture, Professor Andrew Barrie and fully illustrated with architectural drawings and newly commissioned photography of the environment, the people and the building, this book will offer visual and verbal insight into great architecture and its social role. This will be a book for anyone interested in contemporary architecture and to all those looking toward what the future might hold for Christchurch.