united nations conference on human settlements

The design of the Conference Pavilion demonstrates the use of recycled materials and unskilled hands to construct buildings. The buildings consist of an assembly of prefabricated shells made of paper tubes and recycled newspaper supported by wooden columns. The shell elements were fabricated by placing the perimeter paper tube frames on wooden molds. The membrane was then built by laminating layers of newspaper with glue. Later, the units were painted and decorated by the schoolchildren who had built them. The shell units, 8.5 feet square (2.6 metres square) in plan, were assembled on the site to form multiple space grids spanning up to 34 feet (10 metres).