11 Buildings by Shigeru Ban

At a glance, this airy box of a building may look like a typical office for a media conglomerate, with bold, open windows looking out over the nearby river. But the skeleton of this structure, built from a series of wooden pieces the required no joints or glue, suggests a much deeper level of craftsmanship and care, as do the numerous features, such as groundwater heating and cooling system, that make it a model of environmental design.