Archinect has received first photos of Shigeru Ban Architects’ new collaborative installation project with students from The Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.
A product of this semester’s Building Technology course, Shigeru Ban: The Paper Log House honors the 75th anniversary of one of America’s foremost examples of modernism with a special nine-month run that began this week, April 15th, and will run until December 15th.
Working together with a team from the Pritzker Prize winner’s New York office, a group of 39 students engaged in a two-day assembly process that created a 13.5 by 13.5-foot enclosed structure using the special paper log house technique Ban invented in the 90s and has recently deployed in various relief efforts via his Voluntary Architects’ Network (or VAN).
To go along with the restoration of the site's Brick House (which was recently previewed by Christopher Hawthorne for the New York Times), the project will display the Paper Log concept to the anticipated 13,000 annual visitors. The Glass House is hosting a number of special events on campus through the end of the year beginning with the collaboration, which was assembled in March following a five-week fabrication process.
Cooper Union alum and SBA managing partner, Dean Maltz, commented: "From paper log houses to some of the world’s largest mass timber buildings, Shigeru Ban’s humanitarian approach to architecture is something I’ve seen expand from our early days as students at The Cooper Union. It was wonderful to collaborate with our alma mater and a next generation of designers on building the Paper Log House. Our New York-based team was thrilled to oversee the project with The Glass House’s team and supporters including our client Kentucky Owl."
A special "didactic exhibition" and time-lapse video documenting the students’ fabrication and assembly will also be on view in Da Monsta (Philip Johnson's mid-90s gatehouse addition to campus) through the end of the 2024 season. The firm notes this is the first North American installation of the Paper Log concept in six years.
Kirsten Reoch, Executive Director at The Glass House, said finally that she welcomes "this ethos of experimentation and innovation, turning Ban’s creative energy toward the solution of urgent social problems with recyclable and easily available materials."
3 Comments
make sure it doesn't get soaked, when it was in aspen, it looked horrible with all the lower parts of the tubes wet and wrinkled.
It doesn't rain in CT (jk).
The tubes are supposed to be waterproofed but I'm sure wind driven rain can get into the "end grain" or whatever the paper tube equivalent terminology is.
I think here they were buried in snow for 3 months up to 2 ft or so, no cardboard waterproofing can resist that.
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