One of the brightest and most fascinating trends in construction is the adaptation of traditional sustainable building materials and methods to create new forms of building that allow for highly capable, beautiful homes without the environmental cost which comes from extensively using concrete.
This has led to not only a golden period for timber frame construction, but the expansion of the concept to minimise the amount of waste wood and ensure that as few potentially usable materials as possible end up being wasted.
One particular style related to this that has caught people’s attention in recent years, due to the need for affordable, sustainable, beautiful housing, is the concept of “Paper Building” as pioneered by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.
What is Paper Building? How is it related to timber frame building? And how can it potentially revolutionise and evolve existing sustainable construction into a design style capable of almost anything?
What Is Paper Building?
Sustainable construction is about using renewable, reusable and recyclable materials for permanent and semi-permanent buildings, and this was an ambition that the innovative and iconoclastic Shigeru Ban wanted to take full advantage of.
Whilst he has used many different materials in his design history, with his work on the Toyota City Museum a particularly beautiful example of timber-frame architecture, he is most famous for what has become known as Paper Building, or the structural use of cardboard and paper as permanent building materials.
This led to the creation of Paper House in 1995, the first ever permanent structure made from cardboard tubes and a proof of concept for the use of affordable, recyclable materials in architecture. It was meant to be cheap to make, sustainable and be designed to help people and society at large.
This comes from a philosophical core that architecture should serve society and help those most in need, and whilst he has worked on projects at varying scales, he is known primarily for his sustainable humanitarian shelters and community structures made during periods of crisis.
The likes of Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral highlight the potential scale and permanence of supposedly “temporary” buildings made from materials many of us associate with intentional impermanence.
How Does Paper Building Relate To Timber Frame Construction?
Besides most cardboard being made of wood pulp and thus providing a potential avenue to convert waste timber into another viable building material, it highlights the focus on use, preservation and design over materials as a barometer for strength and permanence.
Mr Ban noted that any building that is “loved” becomes permanent, and much of his design philosophy and history bears this principle in mind.
This concept is also important for timber frame housing, which uses a similar approach of minimising waste and maximising the effectiveness of any materials that are used through conscientious design intended to maximise the structural rigidity of the wood.
Much like how a lot of timber framing is coated in fire-resistant coatings that ensure the material maintains structural rigidity in the event of a fire, paper architecture often involves the use of coatings that are waterproof and fire-resistant, ensuring that these sustainable buildings can survive the test of time.
How Can Paper Building Transform Sustainable Architecture?
There is an implicit assumption that some materials will last longer than others, which often shapes the texture, scale and purpose of many architectural projects.
This is why a lot of major buildings are constructed from materials such as concrete, steel and strengthened glass, all of which come with an environmental cost to them.
This is something that Mr Ban has spent his life attempting to avoid, with the idea that good architecture should not necessarily be limited to the rich but work to help everyone.
Timber architecture works in a similar way, with the rise of “plyscrapers” such as Ascent MKE designed to be sustainable, more comfortable and ultimately less expensive ways to build grand architectural projects.
At present, sustainable architecture has focused on finding a place for traditional construction methods and techniques, such as timber, wooden logs and to a lesser extent stone and lime mortar, but the future of sustainability is likely to rely on a range of materials.
The use of timber framing in combination with cardboard tubes allows for greater structural rigidity, whilst cardboard’s versatility in manufacture and in ultimate application allows for a wide range of design and cladding options.
Mr Ban used this to great effect in the Paper Dome, which used wooden joints that could create a curve that cardboard tubes could not without losing their structural rigidity.