Photo courtesy Shigeru Ban Architects Temporary housing by Shigeru Ban is now under construction in Onagawa—a coastal town in Japan that was decimated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Related Links: Ban to Offer Aid to Native Japan Shigeru Ban Hopes to Build Waterproof Shelters in Haiti Ban-Aid Newsmaker: Shigeru Ban Metal Shutter Houses by Ban Ban Pavilion Could Sell for More than $1 Million On the surface, the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, and the town of Onagawa, Japan, do not have much in common.  But one does not have to scratch deeply to find likenesses. Since earthquakes

Shigeru Ban transports his unique Japanese sensibility to a Chelsea condominium with High Line views.

Making the most of a small footprint within a crowded, competitive shopping zone, architect Stephan Jaklitsch married textural layers of materiality with a creative lighting strategy to catch the eye of tony passersby, and to create a subtle yet unique visibility for the American fashion designer Marc Jacobs’s Tokyo flagship.

For quake and tsunami victims left homeless, simple shelters help ease discomfort. Photo courtesy Shigeru Ban Architects Emergency centers set up in gymnasiums and other large structures offer little privacy. In response, Shigeru Ban conceived a partition system made of paper tubes and canvas sheets. “I have been to disaster areas all over the world,” says Shigeru Ban. But never had the Japanese architect and veteran relief worker seen the degree of devastation that struck his homeland on March 11, 2011. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake, followed by the massive tsunami that crashed down on 311 miles of coastline, left thousands of

A cluster of boxes united by irregular, interstitial space, InBetween House mimics the Japanese urban condition on an architectural scale.

Built in 1962, Musashino Art University’s combined gallery-library is one of the school’s treasured original buildings.

Fumihiko Maki During his many decades practicing architecture, Fumihiko Maki has accrued an impressive collection of awards, including the Pritzker Prize (1993) and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (1999). Now, the American Institute of Architects has announced that this year’s Gold Medal will honor the esteemed architect, known for such projects as the Sam Fox School of Design and MIT Media Lab.  A graduate of both Tokyo University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Maki was one of the first Japanese architects to study and work in the United States after World War II. Following his graduation from Harvard in 1954, Maki

In Japan, where few buildings are made to last, trees are mostly dispensable, and real estate remains among the world’s priciest, most architects simply nod politely to the notion of context.