The architect Shigeru Ban, one of the four cover subjects of this year’s T Greats issue, doesn’t like waste — in architecture, or in life. Best known for his disaster-relief shelters made from recycled paper tubes, Ban is similarly rigorous about conserving time. He has no pets and no children, and his only downtime comes in the evening, when he breaks for dinner. In 1995, he built himself a weekend house near Mt. Fuji that, he tells Nikil Saval, “gets no use at all.” It’s fitting then, that when T sent Ban an instant camera and asked him to document scenes from his life, the pictures he sent back were mainly of his projects or his inspirations. His images — which show his latest project in Biel, Switzerland, and his office in Paris, where paper-tube shelving houses miniature models of his buildings — offer an intimate look at the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s work life. But he also shares rare moments of quiet: the Stravinsky Fountain, passed on a walk through the Marais; a set of stairs; and a bottle of Jacques Selosse, opened with family on a trip to the Champagne region of northeast France. See his visual diary below.

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