NOT EMBEDDED TA24-S-O-Pages-copy - Flipbook - Page 33
TOP PHOTO BY CHARLES DAVIS SMITH, FAIA; BOTTOM PHOTO BY MICHAEL BIONDO
Review
St. Thomas in Houston, the aforementioned Beck
House, and the Art Museum of South Texas in
Corpus Christi, among others.
4
While the Brick House and Glass House are paradoxical to each other, the addition of the Paper
Log House furthers the dialogue of material use
on the site. Shigeru Ban, famous for his daringly
complicated yet precise use of timber and paper in
architecture, founded his self-titled orm in Tokyo
in 1985. His steadfast pursuit of meaningful architecture and inquisitive love of design led him to
develop quick-assembly structures for humanitarian crises. These temporary paper log houses
are often used as shelters, medical facilities, and
places of worship, and have been deployed in ove
continents over the past three decades in response
to violent acts of nature and, more recently, war.
Each deployment of the paper log house difers
from the next due to local material availability while
still sharing relatively similar proportions. The prefabricated shelter displayed in New Canaan is comprised of 156 cardboard tubes with a polyurethane
varnish for weathering protection. The plywood
nooring sits atop 30 milk crates, weighted with sand
bags, that function as a foundation. A waterproof
tarp-like canvas membrane acts as the roof, and its
triangulated overhangs provide ventilation on opposite sides. Windows on three sides can be propped
open with a wooden dowel to increase air now. The
primitiveness of the structure enables a comforting simplicity that can often be lost in architectural
typologies that are purely functional, making Paper
Log House both practical and charming. While this
full-scale installation is only a model, it still retains an
aspect of localized construction and volunteerism,
as it was built by architecture students from Cooper
Union, Ban9s alma mater. Although most paper log
houses are temporary installments, the Cardboard
Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, deployed
in response to a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2011,
is still used to this day, highlighting the impact of
Ban9s eforts in local communities.
During Johnson9s many decades in New
Canaan, his homestead served as a playground of
architectural experimentation, which makes Ban9s
inclusion at the Glass House a perfect fit, given
his praised innovative timber and paper construction methods. Kirsten Reoch, executive director at
The Glass House, noted the parallels, saying:
