An 11-story building with 9 duplex residential condominium apartments designed by Shigeru Ban, an architect born in Tokyo and noted for his work with paper products, is planned for 524 West 19th Street.

The building will be called Metal Shutter Houses because much of its street facade will consist of "perforated" metal shutters that can be opened by the residents. Apartments will range in size from about 1,950 to a 3,180-square-foot penthouse with three terraces.

The building will have one of the most prized locations in the city architecturally as it is just to the east of the IAC building designed by Frank O. Gehry that is directly across 19th Street from 100 Eleventh Avenue, a residential building under construction that has been designed by Jean Nouvel and is distinguished by its curved corner with more than 1,500 window panels canted at various angles.

The Metal Shutter Houses building is being developed by HEEA Associates of which Jeff Spiritos is a member, and occupancy is expected late next year.

Shigeru Ban is best known in New York for his installation at Pier 54 in 2005 for the "Nomadic Museum" that created exhibition spaces for animal photographs by Gregory Colbert out of stacked large metal shipping containers. A "paper log" house designed by the architect was included in the "Safe Design Takes on Risk" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art here from October 16, 2005 to January 2, 2006.

The architect started experimenting with cardboard tubes as building material in 1989 and his first Paper Log Houses were erected in 1995 to provide easily assembled emergency shelter for the victims of the earthquake in Kobe, Japan. The Paper Log House has a pitched roof covered by a plastic construction sheet, cardboard tube walls, and a foundation built with plastic beer-bottle crates.

He studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and later he studied under John Hedjuk at the Cooper Union School of Architecture.