Architect Ban wins Spanish award

Jiji Press

18:09 JST, June 24, 2022

PARIS (Jiji Press) — Architect Shigeru Ban, 64, has been named the winner of the 2022 Princess of Asturias Award for Concord, Spain’s Princess of Asturias Foundation said Thursday.

The foundation recognized his work to design innovative shelters and temporary housing for evacuees displaced by natural disasters and armed conflicts.

Ban developed shelters where privacy can be better protected than in existing ones. In 1995, he became adviser to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and created a nongovernmental organization in the hope of transforming the concept of temporary accommodations for emergency situations.

Temporary accommodations adopting his designs were built for Rwandan refugees fleeing the 1994 massacre, evacuees affected by the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in western Japan and Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s ongoing aggression.