>> charlie: welcome to the program. today the dramatic announcement by the malaysian prime minister that malaysian air flight 370 had probably gone down in the indian ocean. >> based on the new analysis ntia concluded that mh370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the indian ocean west of perth. this is a remote location far from any possible landing sites.

it is, therefore, with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that, according to this new data, flight mh370 ended in the indian ocean. >> charlie: for assessment in the ongoing developments of the missing airliner, joined by consultant steve ganyard and bob orr. >> first, you have to find a piece of debris and, working backwards over time, scientists will tell us thousand currents and winds moved debris around and will try to find literally an x on a map and we'll put robotic vehicles underwater, perhaps, sonar, pinger locators will be towed through the zone and if we get lucky may find the

primary wreckage field but that's far from certain and people need to settle in here, charley, while this is big news, we are not close to knowing what happened to the airplane. >> charlie: the announcement of the 2014 pritzker architecture prize recipient. jointed by tom pritzker, chairman of the pritzker organization and the architect who received the award, shigeru ban. >> the purpose of the prize is to honor a living architect who has made a contribution, a significant contribution to humanity and has done it through the built environment and through the art of architecture. >> the difference between permanent or temporary living is not about material. even the church i made in paper after the kobe earthquake, this became a permanent center because the people loved it. even the building made in concrete, if the people tried to make a commercial building, it's

always temporary. other people buy the building to put in the new one. so even the building in concrete can be temporary. >> charlie: a missing air lynner and the new pritzker architecture prize recipient when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: we begin tonight with the ongoing search for the missing malaysian airliner flight mh370 with 239 people on board disapeemped march 8. today plainings prim malaysian r najib razak said it went down in tinneddian ocean. >> it's been concluded flight mh370 flew along the southern corridor and that it is

last position was the middle of the indian ocean west of perth. this is a remote location far from any possible landing sites. >> charlie: the conclusion was the result of new analysis from satellite data. debris was spotted in the area 1500 miles off the southwest coast of australia. joining us now from washington, colonel steve ganyard. he is president of the advisory firm avisant international also a marine corps pilot, served in the state department political military affairs and from the cbs washington bureau bob orr, homeland security correspondent for cbs news. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: the first question, what is the key piece of evidence that led the prime minister to make the

announcement he made? >> i think what inmarsat, which is the company that has the satellite constellation that was getting the pings, did additional forensics, they got boeing to help out and did a peer review study of are we sure it went on this southern route. as you remember, we talked about a northern and southern rock, throute,and they said we are aby sure it's on the southern air c anarcandarcand where the pings t went nowhere but the water. it was done to say for the relatives there's nobody who would survive. >> charlie: what's next, bob? what's next is we have to find recognizable, identifiable piece of debris. i mean, this is an important marker today for the malaysians to come out and tell the families, you've heard crazy

rumors, all kind of speculation, all kinds of people holding on to hopes but as steve said the airplane has crashed somewhere in the deep south indian ocean, but we don't know where and until we find a piece of debris that we say definitely came from flight mh370, we won't know where to start looking for the big wreckage field and until you find that we won't get the key clues we expect to get some day from cockpit to voice recorder and data recorder. >> charlie: i't do we find the wreckage fields? >> first yao find a piece of debris and working backwards the scientists will tell us how the currents and winds moved debris around we'll try to find literally an x on a map, and at that point we'll put robotic vehicles, perhaps, under water sonar, pinger locators will be towed through the zone, and if we get lucky, we may find the primary wreckage field, but that's far from certain, and people need to settle into, charlie, and while this is a big

piece of news today, we are nowhere close finding out what happened to the airplane. >> charlie: steve, you and i talked about this before, do we have any more idea today whether this is a pilant act? >> there are a lot of defensive theories. none stand up to key questions, so nobody has the answer. what we have been given today, all we really know is the airplane went south, it's in the middle of one of the most remote parts of the world and it will be really tough to find out answers about why it's at the bottom of the ocean. >> charlie: is it because we heard the pings, then didn't hear them and we were able to locate where they were by data points is this. >> talking to boeing engineers, they knew how much fuel was on the airplane. the last ping was 7 1/2 hours. there may have been 30 minutes left of gas on board. but if you have 30 minutes of gas and 1,000 miles from land, you won't go anywhere but in the water but will allow them to

narrow the corridor where the airplane was flying, where the last-known point will be, and this will hopefully help locate where the imact was on the ocean because, as bob said, it's the wreckage on the bottom of the ocean that contains the black boxes that will answer most of the mysteries. most of the mysteries are on the bottom of the ocean. we won't find the answers just looking at the debris that's hundreds of miles away potentially from where the wreckage on the bottom of the ocean is. >> charlie: how important are the next two weeks which is what i understand the time will be before the signal from the black box speaks? >> the pinger batteries will run out. they can run out to 40 days. the manufacturer says they're guaranteed to 30 but may run out to 40. we need to remember one thing. in the air france crash, there's a 90% chance both the pingers will work. neither pinger worked. the reason the air france mishap investigation went on so long is they didn't hear the pingers. right after they went over the

area, it wasn't there, they said, oh, my gosh, we're in the wrong place and so they broadened the search and it got so broad they got twisted up in their own research and didn't go back to the basics and it wasn't until they went back and used this statistical analysis to get back to the basics that they found the air france miles from where they predicted. >> charlie: what questions are you asking bob today? >> one of the things i want to know is whether they're making progress on the police side of the investigation. without the crash wreckage and boxes there is only so much you can do on the airplane accident side of the investigation. the f.b.i. is still looking at the computers taken from the pilots' homes, the flight similar later they took from the captain's home. the inintel agencies have continued to go through the flight manifest and checking names against known databases and so far we have big zeros. we don't know anybody on the passenger list that matches up against any criminal database or terror database. so i want to know where they making any progress on the police side of things and, so

far, i have to tell you nothing is jumping out at investigators as highly suspicious. they haven't found anything to date i'm aware of that would point to pre-planning or motive, so again we're back to the possibility that we miff an airplane accident here, a deliberate act here. it's possible there could still be terrorism involved. frankly, most sources will tell you that's falling down the list. we still don't know. into the third week, charlie, we don't have a great deal of answers than right at the beginning. >> charlie: what would be an airplane accident that would cause a plane to do what happened to this plane? >> it's very hard to find a scenario, and i think steve would tell you this as well, that's an accident chain that we've identified that would fit all of the facts. for example, there's been speculation of perhaps a fire on board, perhaps it was a fire that eventually incapacitated the pilots, but it's hard to reconcile. if the fire is bad enough, for example, it will take out your instrumentation and eventually incapacitate the pilots, how bad

is it that the plane still flies for hours. if it's a slow moving fire that works through cockpit and takes down systems one after the other, if that's the case, why didn't the pilots have time to tell someone about their problems. there was a swiss air accident years ago with a fire in the wiring and entertainment system. this was eventually out of control and the planes crashed but the pilots had time to tell us. so you can go through the accident scenarios and you can add something we haven't conceived and you can add a fact or two that knocks a hole in that theory. >> charlie: bob and steve, do you agree with the idea? >> i do. remember, charlie, we talked about last week about the cabin depressurizing some way. >> charlie: right. i talked to a friend of mine, former squad major a captain on a u.s. major airline and he said the decompression, he said, no

way, it's just highly unlikely. i said what about if one of the pilots did it could bit done without somebody noticing? he said no way. he said, it sets off alarm bells in the cockpit, bells, alarms, whistles, lights, so it couldn't have been done when somebody wasn't looking. so as bob said, i don't see the viable scenario that doesn't have a "what if" that really kills any scenario based just on a manufacturing or an aircraft malfunction. >> charlie: so i hear you both saying every scenario has questions about it. >> every one. i think they do. >> charlie, i think that's right. there are questions about every one, but i would just tell you, after the 9/11 commission report, the investigator there came out and said what we had there in large part was a failure of imagination. i ask myself here not necessarily on terror but any of the other theories, are we failing to imagine the kinds of failures that might happen in sequence? and that's a possibility. i would only say, when twa800 went down in july 1996, most

people thought it was a bomb, some thought a missile, but nobody at the outset could come up with a theory that it was a spark on a fuel indicator wire that went to a largely empty fuel tank that caused the engine to ex complet explode. that wasn't on the realm of pockets at the outset. >> we keep going back to air france because there were so many parallels. there was nobody that would imagine the outcome two years later when we found the black box of what happened where the co-pilot put the aircraft into stall and held it all the way in a stall to impact. nobody would have believed it or suggested it and not until we found the black boxes that that became a truth. >> snoopy lot error could be a scenario here? >> could be. >> charlie: are you guys comfortable with the information, is the u.s. government comfortable with the information it's getting from

the malaysian government? >> i certainly have not been. i have been quite critical of the malaysian government. i think there have been contradictions all week, things that have been withheld. we have known things they've done things when they have not admitted it. they changed their story back and forth. the good thing we discussed, we have the australians involved, the ntsb. the pros involved, and we'll get where we need to go. it's unfortunate there are delays that could have been much farther along at this point. >> charlie: bob? i agree. the information has been all over the place and it's very hard to know. the facts we know today are the facts today and tomorrow we find out they're not the case. steve hit it on the head. we have experts from great britain and this country who know how to read radar and extrapolate data, they've looked at this and we're finally getting concrete answers. this is the third week and only began in earnest about a week ago and that said we don't still

have the debris we need. i'm still hopeful we'll find something, and when we get the debris we need, if the pros are involved, i think there's a chance we can find the brig wreckage field but this has not been handled well from the beginning. >> charlie: bob orr, cbs news, thank you so much. steve ganyard thank you again for joining us. >> thank you. >> charlie: tom pritzker is here, chairman and c.e.o. of the pritzker organization and president and chairman of the hi yacht foundation which sponsored the pritzker architecture prize, the award is given annually to a living architect whose work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision and commitment. it is also known as the nobel prize of architecture. today tom pritzker announced the 2014 laureate is shigeru ban. they praised shigeru ban for responsibility and action to create architectural quality to serve society's needs. i am pleased to have tom

pritzker at this table for the first time. welcome. great to see you. >> thank you very much. >> charlie: we have known each other a long time and i have been pleased to be a part of this in terms of interviewing the annual recipient. how did did this happen that the pritzker family became associated with this remarkable idea of recognizing greatness in architecture? >> so what happened was a guy showed up at dad's office cold -- >> charlie: jay pritzker of chicago. >> yes. a guy showed up, said i have an idea. he had no job. his idea was if he could talk us into doing a prize in the world of architecture, then he would have a job as executive secretary. and sure enough he talked us into it. >> charlie: great. dad bought the idea and that's how it was born. >> charlie: and who selects the recipient? >> so we have a strict separation of church and state. we have a jury, and that jury

avows over time, they make the selection, they go into a room on a monday morning and hopefully we get white smoke by the afternoon and they select the jury, the recipient. >> charlie: and these are mainly people with a discerning eye about architecture? >> they're people from different walks of life but all have a passion for architecture. so over the years, carter brown was the chairman for years and years. he was director of the national gallery. ada louise huxtable was on the jury forever, a wonder person. and the current jury is terrific. peter pulumbo is the chairman. we have people from chile, india, across the board. we have an industrialist from

india on the injury. so it's a terrific, diverse jury. >> charlie: what do they look for? >> the purpose of the prize is to honor a living architect who has made a contribution, a significant contribution to humanity and has done it through built environment and through the art of architecture, and that's sort of the prison through which they look for their next honoree. >> charlie: i can speak to this point. you and i are not steeped in the ideas of architecture, but we love architecture, coming to it as both connoisseurs and people who appreciate the skill of those who are gifted enough to understand the environment we live in and how to make functional and buildings that are both residential and institutional and commercial that served a remarkable purpose. it's why the people come to those places and get something special that happens to them

because they inhabit it. that's what i like about architecture, it's a thing that has a continuance and permanence that a lot of things don't. >> it sets the tone for our environment, it sets the tone for what we do every day. erie person on earth -- every person on earth is a consumer of architecture. >> charlie: you said about shigeru ban, his commitment to humanitarian causes to disaster relief work is an example for all. innovation is not limited by building type and compassion is not limited by budget. he has made ourworld a better place. tell me what it is about that aspect of him that was attractive to you. >> so from my point of view, for years, architecture has responded with iconic buildings, responded to the need in the urban environment, responded to a certain segment of humanity. it's a large segment, basically the urban segment. what he's done is he's

responding to a segment, probably the media segment of society, and that is disaster victims. put yourself in their shoes. you've got a disaster, you've lost everything. what shigeru ban can do is create hope. he not only can create a building that can cover your head and provide you with housing, but creating hope in that moment of despair, that to me is a great, great accomplishment and a great contribution. >> he's also known for the use of materials that he uses. >> charlie: he recycles, he builds with materials that could be recycled, but i think he looks at the world differently. maybe a little bit like roushe roushenburg did. he looks at something and while others look and say it's garbage, he says, how can i use that? what's its utility? >> charlie: these are examples of architecture that can make an extraordinary difference. you and i have both seen them.

the hi yacht regency in atlanta. >> build by a developer, designed by john portman, we acquired it just before it opened. what happened wit was fascinating. it changed the mood -- i think it changed the chemistry of the brain of our guests and our employees. everybody walked around with a smile, and there was more interaction, and what we learned from that was architecture can change the experience. and, so, we began at h hyatt to focus on the experience instead of just the functionality of the hotel. >> charlie: and bilbow, the great genius. >> my wife and i took our kids to bill bough when they were teens. they weren't thrilled to go to another museum. i as a parent got what every other parent got.

they looked it, eyes lit up, they ran to the building and touched it and -- >> charlie: how old were they? early teens, i want to say. >> charlie: okay. they touched it, looked, said, is this okay? we said a, yeah. they ran up and down the building, running their hand along the titanium. and charlie, it changed their chemistry, mood, attitude. it really was a fantastic experience for me to see what it did to these kids. >> charlie: and millennium park. >> millennium park, my mom actually made the difference. >> charlie: right. she insisted we have frank gehry do the pavilion and it created a soul in chicago. it created something everybody's proud of. it's a gathering place and it changed the spirit of the city. >> charlie: changed the spirit ofo the city. >> yeah. >> charlie: a city which has e-forms architecture and enormously attractive museums.

>> architecture came early. >> charlie: frank lloyd wright. >> frank lloyd wright at the beginning after the chicago fire. but in the '50s, '60s and maybe even '70s, i would say maybe we weren't exemplary in terms of architecture. millennium park changed everything. >> charlie: is the president going to establish his library in chicago? >> hope so. makes every sense in the world. we certainly hope so. >> charlie: find a fine architect. >> exactly. >> charlie: use him. we certainly hope he'll do it. we expect him to do it. >> charlie: chicago is making a huge effort to say this is where you belong? >> yes. the mayor is leading it. >> charlie: how's he doing as mayor? >> i think he's doing great. i think rahm has the personality, ten nasty and drive and he cares a lot about it. >> charlie: he first announced he wanted to be mayor on this program. i said if you weren't doing

this, what would you like to do? he said, be mayor of chicago. >> he's passionate about his job. if you're passionate about what you do, you're miles ahead. >> charlie: you have a head start. >> absolutely. >> charlie: but there is a real effort to get the president to bring it there. >> for sure, and bringing it all together so you don't have competing bids in chicago. >> charlie: there's also this about the pritzker prize and what it does. is part of the goal to enlarge the appreciation of architecture? >> yes. so the way think of it is we want to raise the awareness of the importance of architecture to everybody, to city opinion leaders, to politicians, to developers. we want them to understand the importance because we think it will make for a better world. >> charlie: it's amazing you see what amanda burden did in this city as head of the planning department, and also

places where there's been a spirit of architecture, take fort worth, texas, for example, where they've had one of the the great great museums in the world there, what it can do to a place to have people thinking about the urban life and it's both planning as well as architecture and the quality of public spaces. >> so i have a friend in china, he actually runs the palace museum in china, and his whole theory is, it's about the heart of the city, and you can create the heart of the city with architecture and culture, and without that you're going to have a city with no soul. >> charlie: you also are interested in archeology, are you not? >> i am. ran into some fairly crazy things. >> charlie: like what? well, my wife and i in 1978 took 12 tibetan nomads, went to

the himalayas and went 500 miles over the northern slopes of the himalayas, two and a half months, the closest radio was a three-week walk away. we went into places westerners had never been and it was the most fascinating thing you can imagine. we were living in medieval times, and the result of that, it led to a fantastic life in terms of scholarship. i developed an expertise in 11th century kingdom in westty betwest tibet. they gave me a degree in china. we do arciol in a remote western region of western tib tee t. >> charlie: did it change your

life? >> it brought balance and gave perspective. you understand what's really important. you live a life in new york or chicago and you can get all wrapped up in it. here you begin to understand what's really important as well as its fascinating. we're exploring and finding things where we're able to contribute to man's learning about our own history. >> charlie: you also collect himalayan art. >> we do. so by personality, what i find is, when i learn about something, i want to move the needle. i look for a way to move the needle. i look for a way to build something around that. so we took this great journey in '78, and, so, i became interested in the way it translated for me was an interest in china, an interest in scholarship around this 11th century kingdom and putting together a collection

that speaks to that era in hopes through art. >> charlie: you have hotels in china. >> we have 28 hotels open, we have 60 hotels in the pipeline and we need to hire 50,000 people in china over the next five years. so we have lots of different activities in china. >> charlie: how much of your time in life does the pritzker prize take? >> not that much. the truth is, during this period of time, you have to pay a little attention. the jury is responsible for selection. we're responsible primarily now, margo and i are responsible for the ceremony. >> charlie: it's in rotterdam? it's going to in amsterdam at the museum. we'll have the ceremony in a

place where it's open to the public so that everybody can participate in the ceremony, then we're going to have a private dinner and then the next day we're going to have a group of laureates speak in a public forum. >> charlie: that's terrific. yeah. >> charlie: which includes sort of the giants of architecture. >> exactly. we certainly hope so. >> charlie: when we come back, we'll meet the 2014 pritzker prize winner, shigeru ban. >> charlie: we are pleased now to have shigeru ban on this program. he is the recipient of the 2014 pritzker architecture prize. it is given annually as you know to a living architect by a jury chosen by the hyatt foundation. he's the seventh japanese architect to become a pritzker laureate, shaped architecture through use of paper and cardboard in buildings. in 2010 he earned great praise with the pompidou center in

france. his work in disaster relief has earned him the title the people's architect. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time. tom pritzker joins me to talk about this because the pritzker foundation and prize is something that his family is very, very proud and believe that it's done something special for architecture. among the things that is special, it is pointing out the remarkable work of people like shigeru ban. thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> charlie: how did they tell you you had been chosen? call you up? >> yes, i got the phone call from the executive director martha. >> charlie: yes. because i know how they were, i thought she was joking. >> charlie: but she wasn't joking. >> she wasn't. >> charlie: what does it mean to you? >> well, since i spent three years at juris, so i know how important this is and also how difficult to choose somebody,

and i couldn't be because i knew because of my experience i have not reached that yet. so now -- >> charlie: you've not done your best work yet? >> well, always i do my best work anytime, but when i went to the house of the second law yet of the award, he was 72 when he received, and i'm not this level yet. so i am taking this approach as kind of an encouragement award to continue doing the work in society. >> charlie: you said i see this prize as to encourage me to keep doing what i'm doing. not to change what i'm doing but to grow. >> yes. >> charlie: tom just said to me that they wanted you off the board, off the jury because they knew that you were becoming an

architect that clearly would be deserving of the prize at some point. >> thank you for saying that. >> charlie: when you were on the board, the jury, what did you look for? >> it was not so difficult because there are so many great architects that have not received the award yet, so this is a competition between the many great architects but also that we need to have some important message. so we are looking for an architect who influence other architects instead of just being the star. we needed to have the message. >> charlie: and if that's true about how, how do you think you've influenced other architects? >> if i can say that i started doing the activities, working in

natural disasters, which the architects have not done like being in the disaster area looking for the problem and making the temporary structure for the victims of the natural disaster. i must say when i started doing it in 1994 after the ar rwanda crisis, nobody was really in the field of disaster. >> charlie: why did you do it? because when i became an architect i was disappointed by professional architects because we are mainly working for privileged people who have money and power and because they are invisible, we asked to make a monument to show the name, the money and the power to the general public. but this is the role of the architect. historically, it's the same. but i saw it to be our

experience can be used not only for making the monument but also for the people for houses for natural disaster. >> charlie: this is the spirit of the pritzker foundation, too. >> very much so. it speaks to a segment of humanity that is the most needy and it speaks to a segment we haven't spoken to in terms of the selection of laureates. >> charlie: how do you do it? give us a sense of how you do that. we're going to look at some of the things that you do that attract a lot of attention. this is what signals you out, is more distinctive about you and more people are becoming aware of it. >> first of all, i have to go there by myself to find out. because the solution, even temporary housing, is very different depending on the country and the area. i have to make my own research, what kind of materials are locally available and i have to find out who can be my partner.

>> charlie: you said it doesn't matter if you get money for a project or not. did you mean that? because you said there are more important things than that. in the end, you get money, but it's more important that you do what? >> the construction for the people. even when i designed the housing, when the resident is very happy, this kind of construction is the same when i designed the more expensive house. there's no difference. just the difference is whether i'm paid or not. but my partner and i -- my partner cares but i am not very much interested. >> charlie: and your accountant (laughter) there is this idea that you are the architect for the peoplele. this is the title they have for you, which very much please you. >> yes, it's more than i should get. because i always want to be

committed to find out the particular problem, especially after i work for the united nations. the government in the united nations cannot solve the problem of the minority people. they have a solution for that minority people, but i always go there to find out the particular problem of the small community or small minority people to start my design. even before the disaster relief project or temporary structure, it has to be beautiful and comfortable. it's no different from other buildings i'm working on. >> charlie: how did you become an architect? >> first i wanted to be a carpenter. i like to work with timber. >> charlie: you were fascinated by building at a young age, the idea of hammers, nails and wood and building things. >> yes. but then -- yeah, very small, i didn't know there was a

professional architects. i knew architects are like the conductor. we have to be the team leader which i was interested in doing. >> charlie: you came to the united states. >> yes. >> charlie: you went to the cooper union. >> yes. >> charlie: and what was that experience like for you? >> well, first of all, this is -- my father was very angry that i decided to go to the u.s. after high school and especially nobody knew about cooper union. it was my dream to be accepted by cooper union, but my father was very angry because it doesn't sound like a school. but this is my dream since high school, working at the cooper union under john hadock (phonetic). >> charlie: he was the paper architect. >> and i became a paper architect. >> charlie: explain that. what is it about paper that you believe can be used so well?

>> nobody -- when people develop something, a structure or material, they try to develop something stronger. but i know the strength of the material has nothing to do with the strength of the building or the durability of the building. even the paper made of cardboard gets weaker than wood, but still, according to the condition and testing, i know we can make a very durable, strong building. even a building made in concrete can be destroyed by an earthquake, but the building i make out of paper cannot be destroyed by an earthquake. >> charlie: why is that? why? the strength of the building has nothing to do with the strength of the materials. >> charlie: ah... so what does the strength of the building have to do with? if it's not the material, it is

what? >> the difference between the permanent or temporary building is not about the strength of the material. even the church i made in paper, the paper church, this became a permanent community center after the earthquake because the people loved it. but even the building made in concrete, if the people aid trio make a commercial building for money, it's temporary. people buy the billing and destroy it to make a new one. so the concrete can be even temporary so it's not about the material. >> charlie: what about is it about the architects in japan? six or seven other architects in have received the pritzker prize. what is it about them? >> the position of architecture in japan is not very high.

up to the a.d. period, there was no architect. the master carpenter designed the building. so that's why the history of being an architect just started about 150 years ago. so that's why the general public doesn't recognize the social position of architect in japan, always we have culture of constructer designing the building. so the general pub yo public dot know the position of architect. >> charlie: the first is the kobe church. >> the year before the kobe earthquake. after the earthquake happened, i sought former vietnamese refugees who were allowed to stay? japan, most had more difficult time than the regular japanese

people and i figured out the vietnamese refugees were gathering at the catholic church in kobe so i went to find out what they need. so before i built this church, i started building the temporary housing because they didn't want to move into government housing because they only have a job in a particularly factory or area or the government house was built outside the city, so, if they moved outside the city, they cannot commute to the factory, so they wanted to live in the park with very poor plastic sheet shelter. so i wanted to improve the shelter as something beautiful and comfortable. >> charlie: the next thing is japanese pavilion, germany, 2000, built out of paper tubes for the head of the world exhibition expo in germany. describe this. >> well, i was very lucky to collaborate with one of the most genius architects in germany and

we collaborated to make this structure out of paper tubes. and the important thing is not only that when it's built, because the expo building only stayed there half a year, then we destroyed it and made it industrial waste. so when the building was dismantled, i wanted to make all of the building to be recycled or reused after the building, so that doesn't go to my design. >> charlie: this is another thing you had great admiration for him, the use of the material? >> i think he thinks about material differently, he thinks about the environment differently and he integrates all of that into the work. >> charlie: the next thing is a temporary studio of the pompidou mehz i metz.

i asked th>> i asked the presidf pompidou, i want to bring my student to build our own studio using paper tubes. so this was a result of the student construction. >> charlie: so the next one is again the center pompidou metz. there you go. describe this. >> this is the one with the biggest timber roof ever built, so the roof is made of timber. it's like the chinese hut. it's very light weight. also we have gallery tubes, framing a beautiful monument of the city. also the order of the facade can be opened using the glass shelter to make a gathering space for people. >> charlie: how did you come to consider these materials more so than almost any architect i can think of? what was the motivating factor?

>> because i don't like to be influenced by fashionable style. when i was a child, there was only a few architect in history that create their own style instead of being influenced by the fashionable style. they developed their own structural system and their own material they were using so it was my dream to develop my own structural system. >> charlie: the next one is the naked house in saitama, georgijapan. >> he wanted a greenhouse and the family wanted to spend time together so i made a small space where they can be connected to go out to the garden to make the room flexible. >> charlie: another example of how environment can influence relationships and how you adjust to. >> and having a client who knows

what they want and he can translate into what they're trying to achieve. >> charlie: right. what's the perfect client for you? >> somebody who can share the same experience. it's not about the size of the project or budget. the client who can share what kind of lifestyle they want to create or what kind of a material, what kind of goal they want to create, if i can share the experience. >> charlie: so when you sit down with a client and someone says i'd like to have a conversation about something that would interest me, what are your questions? what do you want to know? >> first of all, i find out whether this client has seen my work or has read my book to understand me because i don't want to convince people for things they don't like.

i want them to understand my concept of the design from previous projects. >> charlie: if you were designing a home for yourselfle, would you do it or have someone else do it? >> i have no desire to live in my own house. often apartment. >> charlie: you have no desire to create some great place for yourself and your family. >> no. i'm busy enough to make great house for somebody else. >> charlie: and what do you dream about? obviously, you have achieved a certain status so that you can think about the unthinkable and make it possible. >> well, i must say my dream was working all over the world, so now i'm doing it. actually, i don't have any desire or dream to make a high tower. also maybe now any office may

be -- my office may be too big so i need to reduce it to spend more time for each project. also if my office becomes too big, i have too many projects, then i won't have must have time to spend enough time in the disaster area. >> charlie: i know what you mean. finally, the curtain wall house designed by a client who wanted a contemporary home that captured the openness of contemporary japanese homes. >> this has the influence of an architect that designed a house transparent. so i wanted to make a transparent house according to japanese traditional way so that physically inside and outside the spaces are connected so i call this physical transparency. >> charlie: let's talk about relief. first we see the rwanda relief camps. this is 1999 and the image, these are the prototype tents

you designed. >> yes, at that time the problem with the united nations was the deforestization. you have to cut the trees and this became very heavy deforestation. so my aim was using paper to stop cutting trees. >> charlie: to visit a refugee camp as i did last year in jordan because of the syrian war, it's extraordinary how people are forced to live as they're trying to escape political, you know, violence. >> right. >> charlie: and you see it from natural disasters as well, same thing. >> yeah. >> charlie: the next thing is the ann anagawa temporary housi, for the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. >> the japanese government has been making the same kind of

house but it's not comfortable. spending the same amount of money, same size, i wanted to prove to the government i can make something more comfortable. especially the course area, sue tsunami heat, they don't have the area to make single-story housing and i wanted to convince the government we have to make single-story housing to prepare for the big earthquake in the city. >> charlie: so next is the paper partition system, 2011. >> after the big earthquake, people always have to be evacuated to the gymnasium, but there's no privacy between families, until they move into the temporary house. this takes three or four months. >> charlie: this is to give them privacy. >> yes, this is built by a student and victim helped us to

make and this is flexible to adjust to the size of the family. also, after they finish, we can recycle the paper again. >> charlie: finally, the cardboard cathedral. >> 18 days before japan we had the christchurch in new zealand. it was an a anglican church andi was asked to design the church and using paper. >> charlie: do you think his passion for these kindso things has influenced other architects? >> i think he's the pioneer, in many ways the first mover, and i do think that, having received the prize, having seen other architectsarchitects having sees able to do, i think it will be attractive. >> charlie: architects and as well as how the political world appreciates that kind of

involvement. so what are your goals and dreams? >> my dream is to keep looking for people who need space, whether or not they have the money. i would like to keep working in the disaster areas. >> charlie: what has been the most important influence on your life as an architect? >> i have an interest in many great architects but the architect in england built many affordable houses after world war ii. also an architect that very

famous but working with society to build low-cost housing. reese khan, he was driving to india, bangladesh to make their own city without being paid. unfortunately, he passed away in the train station. he's really the one that works in not only the disaster area but with the countries who needs what he has. >> charlie: they put together his own dream for the roosevelt island. >> yes. >> charlie: there is this notion that the "new york times," they called you the accidental environmentalist. i assume that makes you pleased, too. yes, because i use lots of recycled material, and they call me the environmental friendly

architect but that's not true because i started using recyclable material in 1986 when people were not talking about the ecological movement and sustainability. soso i happened to be environmentally friendly afterward. i just do the craftsmanship. >> charlie: you said the most needed thing in architecture today is love. >> that makes a building permanent. >> charlie: that's what makes a building permanent if you have love for the building and for its place. >> yes. >> charlie: thank you and congratulations. it's a pleasure to meet you and this reward and this honor, this representation of the best in architecture is certainly a place where you deserve to be. >> thank you very much. thii will continue working for e

people. >> charlie: good for you. thank you very much. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ theme music plays ] >> yes, "check, please!" people! >> it's all about licking your plate. >> the food is just fabulous. >> i should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were at the same restaurant. >> and everybody, i'm sure, saved room for those desserts. >> you bet.