Disaster Relief Shelters

Ban’s innovations and resourcefulness, coupled with a sense of social responsibility led him to establish in 1995 the NGO Voluntary Architects’ Network (VAN). Over the past decade, he has worked to provide cheap, easy to build, eco-friendly solutions to natural and man-made disasters.

Life presents us with contradictions such as the darkness of fear and the light of peace. Ban uses his designs to eradicate darkness and bring light. His humanitarian work included efforts to provide paper tube shelters to those displaced by the earthquakes in Kobe, India and Turkey, and also by the genocide in Rwanda.

Paper Log House, Kobe Japan, 1995

In 1995, a magnitude 7.2 Richter scale earthquake devastated Kobe Japan, leaving three hundred thousand people homeless. This catastrophic event gave Ban the commission he needed to truly test his method of building. All the materials used were to be prefabricated and assembled at the site. The design was a kind of log-house cabin. Ban used “Kirin Beer” crates as the foundation for the 172 ft site. Each of the crates was filled with bags of sand, which helped to anchor the crates to the site. The gabled roof was supported by the cardboard tubes and covered by a thick double-layered tent material. The gabled ends of the roof were operable, allowing the resident to open or close them at times of rapid climate change. The houses also contained operable windows and shutters, both framed in plywood. Each of the houses were cost effective and easily erected.

A slightly different construction was used to build a church. As a result of the earthquake, the Takatori church in Kobe burned down. The paper church has been constructed in only 5 weeks by 160 church volunteers. The building was rectangular in form, with an interior oval capable of accommodating 80 seats. Corrugated polycarbonate sheeting was used as a skin and 58 tubes placed in an elliptical pattern, inspired by the church designs of Bernini, formed the structure. Operable glazed screens on the façade between the paper tubes allowed the creation of a continuous space between exterior and interior. The roof was made of tent material, allowing for some penetration of light during the day and a certain glow from the inside at night. The requirement that the church be easily assembled by non-skilled volunteers made Shigeru Ban imagine that the structure could well be taken apart and used at another disaster site as required. Though made of apparently ephemeral materials, the church celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2005. Disassembled in June 2005, the church was rebuilt in Taiwan in 2008 with the same materials.

Takatori Catholic Church, Kobe Japan, 1995-2005

When the heart-breaking images of the effects of ethnic cleansing in Rwanda flashed across the world’s television screens, in 1999, Ban volunteered to designed a simple paper shelter construction that could be erected quickly and cheaply. Before his work, refugees were provided with aluminium poles and plastic sheeting for shelter construction. But as the aluminium poles gained good prices on local markets they preferred to sell and replace them by branches found in the woods. As deforestation already was a problem, another solution was needed. Paper tubing, not being a typical building material, was comparatively inexpensive and very accessible at the time. Underpinned by the seemingly obvious, but in a way revolutionary, idea that rather than survivors living in ugly shacks covered with plastic sheeting, they may feel a little better if their temporary accommodation was actually a little more accommodating. “After people have been mentally damaged by a big disaster it is better to stay in a nice, warm space,” is his rationale, which engenders questions about why nobody had thought of it before.

Paper Emergency Shelters for the UNHCR, Yumba Refugee Camp, Rwanda, 1999

Shigeru continued with his concept during the relief assistance following the earthquakes in Turkey 1999, and in the region of Bhuj in India in 2001. For both applications, the design was adapted to local conditions. To protect against the Turkish winter, the paper tubes were filled with shredded paper. In order to suit the hot Indian climate, the roof construction was transformed by blending paper tubing and local materials like bamboo.