Take a Look at Shigeru Ban's Furniture House 1

I know I've gone on and on in this blog about Shigeru Ban's Naked House. It continues to just amaze me the way Ban deconstructed the typical family home and recreated it in this elegant , glowing, minimalist form. So cool.

Today Inhabitat had a nice piece on Ban's Curtain Wall House - another highly unconventional and beautiful home. It reminded me to visit his site again and take a look at other houses he's done. You know, he has done just a ton of cool houses. The one I like the best (other than the Naked House, my all time favorite) is the modest and simple Furniture House 1. It has a marvelously clean and peaceful look, but without pretense or formality. That's hard to do with minimalist modern homes. Too often they come off as cold and museum like. Ban shows the same touch here that he does in the Naked House - just perfect.




Furniture House One employs a kind of unique prefab, structural wall/furnishing strategy that's worth a look. Here's a description of the house and system from Shigeru Ban's site:

"The construction system for the Furniture House features factory produced full-height units that function as structural elements as well as space-defining elements. Since these units are pre-fabricated, construction time on-site is greatly reduced and cost-effective. Serving both as the furniture and as the building material, these units enable a reduction of equipment and labor, as well. (The dimensions of the units used in this house are 2.4 meters high, 0.9 meters wide, with an 0.45 meters depth for bookcases and a 690mm depth for other units.) An individual unit, weighing about 79.2kg, can be easily handled by a single person, and its self-supporting function makes the arrangement simple."

This same system was used in the construction of several subsequent versions of the home. In one interesting variation (below) built in China, Ban used laminated bamboo for pretty much the entire home, from structure to interior and exterior finishes. It's just another example of the master at work, exploring and innovating. Pretty impressive.



Image Credits - Shigeru Ban site