Paper tubes structure : the impulse of the project

Following my previous study of Shigeru Ban’s Paper House from 1995 (see the post here), I wanted to learn more about paper tubes structures, and found a recent work of his very interesting in that regard.

It was the Paper Pavilion of the IE Business School in Madrid, which he designed in 2013, as a temporary pavilion using paper tubes and wooden nodes as structural elements.

Efficient design, built in only two weeks after every element was prepared off site. I found afterwards some very instructive videos from the IE school directly, showing in details the building process, here’s the link : IE Paper Pavilion by Shigeru Ban Architects

I really liked how precise and straight forward the design looked, the way the structure worked efficiently and yet very aesthetically, combining two materials (paper and wood) that are nowadays very relevant.

Getting started on the 3D model

A lot of eyeballing

This time, I didn’t have any floor plan or section to start with, so I had to guess all the dimensions by eye from the few pictures I could find.

Skecthup Workflow

Model was set up on Sketchup, with as usual :

• Units : centimeters
• Layer Organization by type of element
• Efficient scenes to work with
• Clear component hierarchy
• Etc.

For more about my optimized sketchup workflow, you can check my initial post with my shared tips and tricks for working efficiently in Sketchup.

With those in hand, I finished the modeling of the entire thing in about 2-3 days.

Building the model piece by piece

I started by choosing a diameter of 14 cm for all the paper tubes (which might be a little smaller than the ones used in real life), which then gave me the overall dimensions of the wooden pieces.

I deducted them because I needed to leave enough space for the round protruding parts (matching the internal diameters of the paper tubes, so 11,5cm), in which the paper tubes would be sliding into.

See below :

After rounding up the distance between two wooden junctions to 1,40m, I ended up recreating a quite similar framework to the Paper Pavilion, only I extended it a little to form a square based structure that looked more like a dojo.

With the wooden junction being based on a 20x20cm square (keeping it round), each ‘frame’ is now 1,60×1,60m which made very easy to duplicate and multiply all elements in X and Y directions, especially in Sketchup.

Instructive Modeling : lessons from the model

The most important thing in the making of this model was the connexion between the wooden junctions and the regular paper tubes, plus the spaces necessary for the bracing cables attachements.

Also, the drawing of the particular wooden junctions under the sloped roof was tricky. It had to make possible the paper tubes locking on both sides on the same angle (in my case 7 degrees).

Note : that angle cannot be to big since it will then cut too deep into the wooden junction under the roof. There has to be a balance here, in the angle of the roof.

Get your 3D files for free

I uploaded the 3d files in the native skp formats, as well as the fbx, 3dsmax and obj exports.

They are all completely free to download in my CG trader collection, for anyone interested into checking the details on the model directly, or playing around with it.

Use paper and wood in your 3D models. Think of the planet.

My final results

The renders best presenting the model, which is now 16x16m big, are from the native Sketchup file with Enscape 3.4 renderer, still the easiest to use in terms of speed and not complicating things.

Conclusion

In the end, the structural accuracy part should be checked of course, since it doesn’t feel like the paper dojo should be able to stand on its own like this. Might want to add a few columns here and there.

However, the principle of connecting wooden junctions with paper tubes is well understood now, thanks to this nice little project.

The design of those junctions needs to leave enough space around the paper tube internal diameter, and for inclining metal plates receiving bracing cables. It also needs to be adjusted once you are right under a slightly angled roof.

I hope you’ll find it useful in any way,

I think I had it with paper tubes now… so I’ll see you on the next one.