Curtain wall house, Shigeru Ban
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Shigeru Ban designed the Curtain Wall House in 1995 in Tokyo, Japan. The house uses curtains as the primary facade material rather than traditional building materials. It has a free plan layout with few interior partitions, emphasizing flexibility of use. Key aspects of its design include using curtains for privacy and climate control, exposed steel structure, and operable glass doors that provide views and ventilation while allowing the interior and exterior to freely interact.
Curtain wall house, Shigeru Ban
- 1. S H I G E R U BAN Curtain Wall House
- 2. General Information: Location: Itabashi-Ku, Tokyo, Japan Date: 1995 Site Area: 110 m² Building Area: 75 m² Total Floor Area: 179 m²
- 3. Aesthetics of Shigeru Ban's Architecture Ban stance as Japan's most prominent architect is supported by his ability to establish his own unique style in the age where the infusion of information and manifestation of the multitude of styles often define Japanese contemporary architecture. His design philosophy is to create uniquely free and open space with concrete rationality of structure and construction method. Ban creates entirely new spaces using such materials as paper tubes. He reexamines the existing materials in recycled forms and uses them in ways no one had ever thought of previously. Thus, he address environmental concerns and alludes to the Japanese spiritual preference for natural housing materials. “In Japan, where the visual structure is usually so loud, a seemingly endless cacophony of signs and symbols, the calm simplicity of Ban's projects speaks with tremendous strength. Silence is the powerful voice Ban uses.” Paper Pavillion
- 4. Curtain Wall House Shigeru Ban is regarded by most to be one of the world's most innovative architects, using environmentally-friendly materials that are easy to transport, store and recycle. Ban began to experiment with unconventional materials in 1986, when he used paper, instead of wood, to build an Alvar Aalto exhibition display. He uses anything from beer cases to cardboard, to paper tubes to tenting fabric. The Curtain Wall House is one of his well-known projects that that a part of an exhibition the Museum of Modern Art in 1999 called The Un-Private House. True to the title of the exhibition, the Curtain Wall House embodies openness and transparency between interior and exterior. Billowing curtains are the only means of providing privacy to the residents of the house. Without the fabric, the house becomes completely exposed to the busy street. “Mies invented the glass curtain wall, but I just used a curtain” -Shigeru Ban
- 5. False facade Ban played with the idea of a glass curtain wall system, and took the terminology quite literally when he decided to envelop the exterior of the house in conventional domestic drapery. The curtain that Ban uses drapes over the two story structure and acts as a facade wall when drawn over the structure. Though it may seem that the drapery is hanging freely at the exterior, behind it there is a series of sliding glass doors that provide protection from unfavorable weather conditions, yet still create a feeling of transparency. When closed during the day, the curtain still filters in the daylight into the living areas of the house, traditional Japanese rice paper functioning like the rice-paper screens, alluding to screens Japanese architecture. When pulled back, the curtain allow the air to enter the interior space freely, and are excellent as a passive cooling mechanism.
- 6. The building is located at the intersection of two busy streets in Tokyo and is raised above the street level by columns. Ban uses abstract vocabulary of planar elements, such as roofs, walls and floors with minimum enclosure. The only room that is closed off from the public eye is the bathing area. Though compared with Mies' Farnsworth House, Ban points out the difference that where Mies hermetically seals off his building from the exterior elements, Ban uses glass to allow visual but not acoustical or thermal exchange, the Curtain Wall House allows complete engagement with all aspects of its urban context.
- 7. In the Cutain Wall House, Shigeru Ban employs the idea of an “un-private house”, using the curtain as the only visible separation between the inside and the outside. His idea is also manifested in the free plan of building. Without any partitions, spaces and functions can be arranged according to the owner's desires. Spaces are very flexible in its use.
- 8. Wide decks are attached to the East and South side of the second floor living room, supported by a structural steel frame. Exposed columns, acting as a primary structure, support the beams that act as cantilevers at the two sides of the building (east and south), allowing for an open facade and the feeling of transparency. The living spaces on two floors are unhindered by structural supports, playing on lights and shadows and attempting to "bring the outside in." The third floor plane is sandwiched between the cantilevered roof and the second floor plane. The columns support the second floor plane at its corners.
- 9. Environmental Concerns Shading: Putting an overhang on the building over the terrace has strong environmental implications. The overhang acts as a shading device, to protect the otherwise exposed glazed South facade from direct sun. Sunlight: As weather conditions cause the temperature to change, the house adjusts by donning or shedding layers of fabric, just as a human would. Insulation: In winter, the externally glazed doors and the curtains can be completely closed for insulation and privacy.
- 10. Glass Curtain Walls Though Ban puts much emphasis on his tongue-in-cheek interplay of the phrase “curtain wall” by using actual curtains, the glass curtain wall is, nevertheless present, though not prominent, in the Curtain Wall House. In its essence, the Curtain Wall House is still a glass box with a flat roof and evenly spaced structural steel I- beams. The glass doors are fully-operable and can be slid back and forth. These operable glass partitions do not carry any dead load from the building other than its own dead load. These loads are transferred to the main building structure through connections at floors of the building. The image to the left demonstrates a typical assembly of movable glazed wall panels.
- 11. Bibliography: Broto, Carles. Minimalist Interiors. Barcelona, Spain : Links International, 2008. McQuaid, Matilda. Shigeru Ban. London : Phaidon, 2003. Riley, Terrance. The Un-Private House. New York : Museum of Modern Art : Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1999. Buck, David N. Shigeru Ban. Barcelona : G. Gili, 1997. <http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/05/22/shigeru-ban-curtain-wall-house/> <http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1999/un-privatehouse/project_04.html>