Shigeru Ban designed the Curtain Wall House in 1995 in Tokyo, Japan. The house uses curtains as the primary facade material rather than traditional building materials. It has a free plan layout with few interior partitions, emphasizing flexibility of use. Key aspects of its design include using curtains for privacy and climate control, exposed steel structure, and operable glass doors that provide views and ventilation while allowing the interior and exterior to freely interact.

1. S H I G E R U BAN
Curtain Wall House

2. General Information:
Location: Itabashi-Ku, Tokyo, Japan
Date: 1995
Site Area: 110 m²
Building Area: 75 m²
Total Floor Area: 179 m²

3. Aesthetics of Shigeru Ban's Architecture
Ban stance as Japan's most prominent architect is
supported by his ability to establish his own unique style in
the age where the infusion of information and
manifestation of the multitude of styles often define
Japanese contemporary architecture.
His design philosophy is to create uniquely free and open
space with concrete rationality of structure and
construction method.
Ban creates entirely new spaces using such materials as
paper tubes. He reexamines the existing materials in
recycled forms and
uses them in ways no one had ever thought
of previously. Thus, he address
environmental concerns and alludes to the Japanese
spiritual preference for natural housing materials.
“In Japan, where the visual structure
is usually so loud, a seemingly endless cacophony of
signs and symbols, the
calm simplicity of Ban's projects speaks
with tremendous strength. Silence is the powerful voice
Ban uses.”
Paper Pavillion

4. Curtain Wall House
Shigeru Ban is regarded by most to be one
of the world's most innovative architects, using
environmentally-friendly materials that are easy to
transport, store and recycle. Ban began to experiment
with unconventional materials in 1986, when he used
paper, instead of wood, to build an Alvar Aalto exhibition
display. He uses anything from beer cases to cardboard,
to paper tubes to tenting fabric. The Curtain Wall House
is one of his well-known projects that that a part of an
exhibition the Museum of Modern Art in 1999 called The
Un-Private House.
True to the title of the exhibition, the Curtain Wall House
embodies openness and transparency between interior
and exterior. Billowing curtains are the only means of
providing privacy to the residents of the house. Without
the fabric, the house becomes completely exposed to
the busy street.
“Mies invented the glass curtain wall, but I just used a curtain”
-Shigeru Ban

5. False facade
Ban played with the idea of a glass curtain wall
system, and took the terminology quite literally
when he decided to envelop the exterior of the
house in conventional domestic drapery. The
curtain that Ban uses drapes over the two story
structure and acts as a facade wall when drawn
over the structure. Though it may seem that the
drapery is hanging freely at the exterior, behind it
there is a series of sliding glass doors that provide
protection from unfavorable weather conditions,
yet still create a feeling of transparency. When
closed during the day, the curtain still filters in the
daylight into the living areas of the house,
traditional Japanese rice paper functioning like the rice-paper screens, alluding to
screens
Japanese architecture. When pulled back, the
curtain allow the air to enter the interior space
freely, and are excellent as a passive cooling
mechanism.

6. The building is located at the intersection
of two busy streets in Tokyo and is raised
above the street level by columns. Ban
uses abstract vocabulary of planar
elements, such as roofs, walls and floors
with minimum enclosure. The only room
that is closed off from the public eye is
the bathing area. Though compared with
Mies' Farnsworth House, Ban points out
the difference that where Mies
hermetically seals off his building from
the exterior elements, Ban uses glass to
allow visual but not acoustical or thermal
exchange, the Curtain Wall House allows
complete engagement with all aspects of
its urban context.

7. In the Cutain Wall House, Shigeru Ban employs the idea of an “un-private house”, using the
curtain as the only visible separation between the inside and the outside. His idea is also
manifested in the free plan of building. Without any partitions, spaces and functions can be
arranged according to the owner's desires. Spaces are very flexible in its use.

8. Wide decks are attached to the East
and South side of the second floor
living room, supported by a structural
steel frame. Exposed columns,
acting as a primary structure, support
the beams that act as cantilevers at
the two sides of the building (east
and south), allowing for an open
facade and the feeling of
transparency. The living spaces on
two floors are unhindered by
structural supports, playing on lights
and shadows and attempting to
"bring the outside in."
The third floor plane is sandwiched
between the cantilevered roof and
the second floor plane. The columns
support the second floor plane at its
corners.

9. Environmental Concerns
Shading: Putting an overhang on the
building over the terrace has strong
environmental implications. The
overhang acts as a shading device, to
protect the otherwise exposed glazed
South facade from direct sun.
Sunlight: As weather conditions cause
the temperature to change, the house
adjusts by donning or shedding layers of
fabric, just as a human would.
Insulation: In winter, the externally
glazed doors and the curtains can be
completely
closed for insulation and privacy.

10. Glass Curtain Walls
Though Ban puts much emphasis on his
tongue-in-cheek interplay of the phrase
“curtain wall” by using actual curtains, the
glass curtain wall is, nevertheless present,
though not prominent, in the Curtain Wall
House. In its essence, the Curtain Wall
House is still a glass box with a flat roof
and evenly spaced structural steel I-
beams. The glass doors are fully-operable
and can be slid back and forth.
These operable glass partitions do not
carry any dead load from the building other
than its own dead load. These loads are
transferred to the main building structure
through connections at floors of the
building.
The image to the left demonstrates a
typical assembly of movable glazed wall
panels.

11. Bibliography:
 Broto, Carles. Minimalist Interiors. Barcelona, Spain : Links International, 2008.
McQuaid, Matilda. Shigeru Ban. London : Phaidon, 2003.

Riley, Terrance. The Un-Private House. New York : Museum of Modern Art : Distributed by

H.N. Abrams, 1999.
Buck, David N. Shigeru Ban. Barcelona : G. Gili, 1997.

 <http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/05/22/shigeru-ban-curtain-wall-house/>
 <http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1999/un-privatehouse/project_04.html>