27. April 2024
View of Shigeru Ban’s Paper Log House at The Glass House’s 49-acre estate. (Photo: Michael Biondo)
The Glass House is displaying the Paper Log House designed by Shigeru Ban Architects and constructed by students from The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. A short film shows the fabrication of the building off-site and its assembly on Philip Johnson's 49-acre estate in New Canaan, Connecticut.
The Paper Log House is a 13.5-foot (4.1m) square enclosure made of paper tubes, wood, and milk crates that Shigeru Ban designed to provide temporary housing for victims of disaster. It has been deployed in five continents over the last 30 years. The installation at The Glass House — the first time it has been displayed in North America in six years — was made as part of a special project offered through The Cooper Union’s Building Technology course this semester under adjunct professor Samuel Anderson. The collaboration is hardly arbitrary, as Shigeru Ban attended The Cooper Union and received his Bachelor of Architecture there in 1984.
Watch “Shigeru Ban: The Paper Log House at The Glass House,” a five-minute film documenting the construction of The Paper Log House: