Often considered the Nobel Prize of architecture, this year’s Pritzger Architecture Prize has been awarded to Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, known as well for designing dwellings for survivors of disasters as he is for the headquarters of Swatch and Omega in Switzerland. He made a cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand out of cardboard paper tubes following a devastating earthquake in Feb., 2011. In the wake of the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, Ban crafted temporary homes for Vietnamese refugees out of beer crates filled with sandbags. Following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, he made temporary modular homes from shipping containers on an unused ball field, and many remain occupied because the families do not want to leave them. According to nytimes.com, the socially conscious Ban says, “Whether you work for a private client or on a house for an earthquake victim, you’ve always got some problem to solve by design, the only difference being whether you get paid or not.”

More than once he has worked at his own expense, as MHProNews.com has learned, when the wheels of bureaucracy move too slowly. A recent project involves modular housing that could be used in developing countries to replace slums, or to be used for disaster relief. He adds, “I always feel sorry for doctors and lawyers who work only with people in distress, while architects get to work with people who are happy to be moving into new houses. We have a responsibility to work with people who have problems, too, because we have an opportunity to provide them with something beautiful and comfortable.” ##

(Photo credit: Hiroyuki Hiria/nytimes.com–Ban’s modular housing made from shipping containers following a Japanese earthquake.)