Innovations that change the future of humanity: Kobe Paper Tube House!

Ban's temporary homes are called Kobe Paper Tube Houses and provide safe, warm shelter for thousands of displaced refugees.

In January 1995, young architect Shigeru Ban traveled to Kobe, Japan, to witness the aftermath of one of the most devastating earthquakes in history.

Shigeru Ban is known as the 'witch' who builds houses out of cardboard for refugees. (Source: vietnamconstruction).

The 7.2 magnitude Hanshin-Awaji earthquake and 74 aftershocks killed 6,433 people, destroyed nearly 400,000 buildings, countless roads and railway bridges, as well as most of the embankment in the port. About 300 fires broke out in the city, disrupting electricity, water and gas systems.

Kobe residents told Ban about violent shaking that knocked them out of bed at dawn. For 20 seconds, the world was filled with the sound of broken glass, falling tiles and the crunching sound of old wood being bent. When the survivors began to venture out, what they saw was like hell. The window is shattered. The car was crushed. Houses collapsed. Dead bodies were scattered everywhere. Seismologists later determined the epicenter was located on an east-west strike-slip fault where the Eurasian and Philippine tectonic plates meet. In total, the earthquake caused more than $100 billion in damage.

Ban was one of 1.2 million (a staggering number) volunteers who flocked to the Kobe area to provide relief and assistance. As an architect, he felt that too many colleagues in the profession, including himself, did not try hard enough to help the thousands of people who lost their homes in natural disasters. 'We didn't work to serve society ,' he recalls.

'We work for the privileged, the rich, the government developers.'

You know what you need to do to improve the situation. After witnessing the complete destruction of one of the local Catholic churches, he approached the priests with a bold proposal.

Kobe Paper Tube House. (Source: archdaily).

'Why don't we rebuild the church with paper tubes?' , he asked.

That exchange was both short and odd. 'Oh, my God,' the priests responded incredulously. ' Are you crazy? After the fire?'. They flatly refused. Who in their right mind would agree to the proposal to build a house out of paper?

Undaunted, Ban recruited volunteers and launched a plan to build houses for those most in need of shelter in Kobe using recycled paper tubes. This building material proves to be sturdy, affordable, resistant to moisture and termites, and perhaps most surprisingly, water and fire resistant.

Ban's temporary homes are called Kobe Paper Tube Houses and provide safe, warm shelter for thousands of displaced refugees. The foundation of the house are donated beer crates stuffed with sandbags.

For insulation, Ban uses waterproof foam tape reinforced with glue, inserted between the paper tubes of the wall. Each house costs less than $2,000. After Ban built 50 houses, the priests finally calmed down. They said: 'As long as you collect donations yourself and bring students to build, you can do it'.

So Ban spent five weeks rebuilding the Takatori church , which later became world-famous as the Paper Church. Although originally intended to only exist for three years, the church has been loved by many people and has stood in Kobe for more than a decade. Finally, it was dismantled and shipped to Taiwan.

Until now, this church is still a fixed place of worship, first of all to serve victims of earthquakes on the island. Ban's easy-to-build paper houses are now used regularly across Japan - and the world - when natural disasters strike.