The Cardboard Cathedral

The Cardboard Cathedral is an Anglican Diocese in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was built to replace the city iconic 1864 Anglican Cathedral, which was damage by an earthquake in 2011.

The Cardboard Cathedral was designed by a Japanese Architect Shigeru Ban, and was opened to the public in august 2013. The Cardboard Cathedral is a one floor building and was design to withstand future earthquake.

 

In respect to the structure withstanding future earthquake, an odd building material was used by Shigeru Ban.  Using Cardboard to construct the cathedral. We know cardboard to be light weight, and not durable to be used as building material.

Ban used industrial recyclable cardboard tubes to construct this 24 meters high, A-frame style Cathedral. The industrial cardboard tubes are stronger and coated in waterproof and flame-retardant film.

 

These cardboard are not expensive, it can also be recycled, low-tech. and there are replaceable and available in most countries.  The Cathedral is constructed from 98 equally sized cardboard tubes and 8 steel shipping containers. The construction was done by pre-fabricating timber, steel and cardboard.

 

The Cathedral roof is reinforced with laminated wooden beams, and then protected with transparent polycarbonate sheets, space by 2” apart from each sheet, to let in light into the interior. The structure has triangular pieces of stained glass, replacing the rose window. The foundation is concrete slab, while the flooring is polished concrete. The Cardboard Cathedral is to seat 700 people. 

Images: Stephen Goodenough, Bridgit Anderson