Humanitarian Ban

Shigeru Ban is a member of the United Nations High Commissions for Refugees (UNHCR), and with this he helps with building projects for disasterous areas. One example of his help in needed times would be the Paper Log Houses. There three small villages of these 'log' houses in Kobe, Kaynasli, Bhuj for the victims of earthquakes. These small houses are put up by volunteers very easily using small differences in each location. Like in Kaynasli, Turkey they made the cabins a bit bigger because of the larger average family size, and inside the paper tubes there was more insulation.

He also created a new 'tent' structure using the paper tubes mentioned before, to help the victims of other disasters. Before the tents were made from metal pipes, but the people would sell them for more money and them cut down a lot of trees, cauing major desruction on that particular area. These tents have help create a sort of home for those victims until they can get something more like the log houses.

He is really into keeping himself from using materials, for say a expo, that are just going to be taken down soon and throw away. Instead he has fiqured out ways to use exo-friendly materials that can be reused and up in a different place creating a entire different space. One example of this is the paper tubing that he uses in many of his designs, then recycles them and reuses them later on.