Crate Expectations: 12 Shipping Container Housing Ideas
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10.15.08
Judging by the three most popular posts in TreeHugger, it seems that much of our readership wants to green their sex life in front of a pellet stove in a shipping container house. And why not? Shipping containers are cheap, plentiful and strong. I grew up surrounded by containers (and helped my dad design the Kalkinesque warehouse shown above for Northern Canada in the seventies) and always thought the interior dimensions too small, the floors too toxic and the problems of insulating and making them comfortable too challenging, but dozens of architects and shipping container designs have proven me wrong. Let's count the ways.
Single Container Units
Porta-Bach
A bach "is the name given in New Zealand to structures akin to small, often very modest holiday homes or beach houses.They are an iconic part of New Zealand history and culture." Wp
Cecile Bonnifait and William Giesen of atelier workshop have built a bach out of a box, a 20' shipping container.This isn't easy to do; they are narrow inside. They pulled it off by having one side of the container fold down to open it up to the outdoors; suddenly it is bright and open. (much like the All-terrain Cabin) Every inch of it is used cleverly, even the container doors become support for a bed. Port-a-Bach Shipping Container Holiday Home
All-Terrain Cabin
Take an easy-to handle 20' ISO container frame. Outfit it with folding walls and the best in Canadian design. "The result is as smart as it is efficient, suitable for a family of four and a pet to live off the grid in comfort and contemporary style. It travels by train, truck, ship, airplane or helicopter, folded up and indistinguishable from any ordinary shipping container. Once it arrives, it unfolds rapidly to 480sf of self-contained, sophisticated living space with all the comforts of home.All Terrain Cabin
Ecopods
Dwight Doerkson has developed "an affordable eco friendly building that’s transportable and doesn’t need to be hooked up to the grid"- out of shipping containers. He cuts out an entire wall and hinges it, so when you want to leave your ecopod you simply flip a switch and a solar powered winch pulls up the deck and closes up the box.Ecopods: Shipping Container Housing Available Now
Future Shack
Aussie architect Sean Godsell's small masterpiece is a refugee housing unit made from a ready-made, re-used shipping container. Super-efficient and simple, but made to last and protect, the unit uses a bare minimum of industry materials. Since it's entirely self-contained, a number of units can be shipped together to their destination of need. It's solar powered, too.FutureShack by Sean Godsell
Push-Button House
"Shipping container prefab houses certainly aren't anything new (we featured them some time ago, here) but the latest incarnation from architect/artist Adam Kalkin is pretty darn slick, so we had to mention it. The Push Button House is exactly that: it starts as a shipping container until a button is pushed, and it turns into a house. Motorized walls unfold like a flower, revealing a fully functional house, complete with refined, understated furnishings." -well, not really, given that there is no roof or walls or plumbing, Collin overstated it, calling it a fully functional house. But it is a good conversation piece.Push-Button House by Adam Kalkin
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Container Housing Jumps the Shark
- Reddit Yet? TreeHugger's Top 25 Posts from 2008 on Reddit.com
- An Earthquake-Ready School for China (Just Add Cardboard Tubes)
- So Long 2008, and Thanks for All the Posts
Quote of the Day: Bob Lutz on What Could Kill The Volt
|
Solar Power International Photo of the Day: Giving GreenVolts ‘Utility-Scale’ Concentrating Solar PV a Sense of Scale
|
Great compilation- I didn't know more than half of them!
Love this architectural fetish.
kunsthalle for subculture in seoul korea built from containers- coming soon. www.kunsthalle.com
Check out this shipping container home built in Fernwood ( a suburb in Victoria BC Canada)
http://www.mondaymag.com/articles/entry/the-shipping-news
These are fun and very innovative, but I've got six kids, so living in a container is probably not an option.
Pics don't post for me on this page, either with Firefox or MSIE.
This article is terribly researched. the DeMaria projects are far more in number and the best I've seen to date. How could that designer be left out of this article is beyond belief. They've built more projects with containers that anyone in the US and they're not included???????????
I have a hard time seeing shelters being built using shipping containers, as something special. To create an interior, that most people would want to live in you are going to building stud wall, and inserting doors, windows, along with building a ceiling, and putting down a new floor. In many places a DIYer can build a shelter of the same footage from scratch, for what the container cost. In not being constrained by the shape of the container, they would have a wider range of design possibilities. A 480 sq. ft. cabin, would have a 29 x29 foot print.
Assuming Chinese manufacturing keeps pace, I can see the chines installing hammer mills in the US. Enabling them to ship the containers back to China. so they can export the recycled steel as new products.
I vote for the all terrain cabin, it's great!
common guys, do your homework.
the coolest container house is the freitag-tower (freitag bags) in zurich, switzerland.
http://flickr.com/photos/76283035@N00/168181440
Dozens of architects and shipping container designs defy popular trends. Let s count the ways.
My company prepares structural designs for shipping container buildings. From what we can see, the containers provide certain advantages structurally: You can easily build long narrow houses with large open interiors, which is hard to do with traditional wood frame. The containers are cheaper for the structure than traditional steel framing. Also, they are extremely strong, they can take very high wind loads. So, these structures are good for the following type buildings:
- Buildings in cities which have to be narrow because of lot sizes, but large open interiors are desired.
- Buildings in high wind or seismic zones where a lot of strength is needed.
They are also good for storage buildings, because little modification is needed. For habitable buildings you do need to put in studs, insulation and all that, but you have to in any habitable building. The basic structure is very cheap.
George