Shigeru Ban, 1957–, Japanese architect, known especially for temporary structures made from nonstandard building materials and built in response to environmental or societal disasters. After graduating (1984) from the Cooper Union School of Architecture, New York City, he established (1985) a practice in Tokyo, later adding offices in Paris and New York. He first used cardboard tubes as construction materials in the mid-1980s. In 1994 he suggested that they be used to construct housing for Rwandan refugees; some 50 shelters were eventually built (1998), using paper tubes for the frame and fabric for walls and roofs. In response to the Kobe, Japan, earthquake (1995), Ban designed temporary housing with foundations made of beer crates, walls of paper tubes, and canvas roofs. Similar projects include a temporary school (2008) in Chengdu, China, and the "Cardboard Cathedral" (2011) in Christchurch, New Zealand, both constructed after earthquakes destroyed the original buildings. Among his more conventional, though nonetheless inventive works are the Naked House, Kawagoe, Japan (2000), in which four large boxes on casters serve as movable rooms in a long, light-flooded interior; the mobile Nomadic Museum (2005), constructed of shipping containers that can be disassembled, moved, and reasssembled; the Pompidou Center's satellite museum in Metz, France (2010), with a swooping roof inspired by a bamboo hat; and Colorado's Aspen Art Museum (2014), a glass box wrapped by a latticework grid of resin-infused paper and wood veneer. In 2014 Ban was awarded the Pritzker Prize.