Shigeru Ban Architects is operating in Turkey in response to the devastating earthquake that killed more than 50,000 across the region last month while leaving an estimated 3 million unsheltered in two countries.

The firm’s non-profit Voluntary Architects' Network (VAN) released details Thursday about their recent deployment of the same Paper Partition System (PPS) temporary shelter seen in Ukraine and elsewhere in response to situations where masses of people have been displaced following earthquakes in Japan, Nepal, and two other countries. 

Ban, who had previously delivered temporary Paper Log House designs to displaced persons after the devastating 1999 İzmit earthquake, pioneered the technique of installing a structure made of approximately 2x2-meter paper tubes over which fabric privacy curtains can be installed. The first PPS version was deployed in Japan in 2011 in response to the 3/11 earthquake and was later mentioned as one of several structural innovations in the citation for his 2014 Pritzker. Ban has not said exactly its capacity or if any additional shelters will be installed in either country.

The photos depict construction of shelters in a gymnasium in Mersin, Turkey, and a prototype assembly at a storehouse in nearby Bursa. 

This effort comes in addition to the IKEA Foundation’s donation of 5,000 emergency shelters in Hatay. Many students are among the displaced population in Turkey, which also includes many poorer Turkish citizens and migrants living in precarious dwellings made possible by lax code enforcement and the prevalence of “building amnesties.” People have been sleeping in trains and greenhouses, while those afflicted in neighboring Syria also face surging cholera outbreaks and a lack of adequate infrastructure held over from their civil war.

A list of resources and other aid organizations helping in the crisis can be found here. Archinect will share more updates on the shelter situation as they are made available.