If you are interested in green building, environmentalism, or architecture, chances
are that you have seen some of the chic structures coming out of the shipping
container building movement. These structures range from the Redondo Beach
container home, which won an award for innovative design from The American
Institute of Architects in 2007, to the 85 foot tall Freitag container structure located
in Zurich. Although these buildings are architectural masterpieces, the reasons
container homes really shine in the eyes of Eco Brooklyn are environmental, cost,
and function related.
A container home is environmentally sound because it is the product of reused
materials. Repurposing a shipping container into a home allows the supporting
structure along with the ceiling of a home to come with almost no new production,
resulting in large savings in lumber. This process also cuts down on the energy that
would be required to turn a container into scrap metal before that metal is reused.
Repurposing also does away with the possibility of improper recycling or disposal of
the container.
The modular nature of shipping container construction allows for large savings on
production materials, labor hours, and carbon emissions in comparison to
conventional on-site building. These advantages are gained through the ability of
shipping container home construction to be carried out in a central location. This
allows for the project manager to easily have materials shipped to the site so there
is no reason to buy more material than is necessary, which is common practice for
on-site construction. The laborers can work in a climate controlled setting with all of
the necessary tools readily available, and it is not necessary to more large quantities
of people to an obscure job site every day.
Shipping containers are extremely functional when it comes to use as a prefabricated building material considering their low price (as low as $1500 per unit).
These functional advantages include strength, availability, stackability, transport
ease, speed, and addition ease. Shipping containers are used as heavy cargo carriers
with the ability to be stacked upon one another on sea-going ships. This means that
the containers are far stronger than what is necessary for a home, and they are
designed to be stacked, which allows for easy construction of second and third
stories.
In port cities (most of the biggest cities are port cities) used shipping containers are
readily available in all kinds of sizes and conditions. Even if you are not located in a
port city, shipping containers are easily transported by truck. This allows for the
use of shipping containers in very remote areas, like the Australian Outback,
because they can be built where the work is and then easily transported to where
the remote home may be located.
Shipping container construction is inherently fast. This is because the relatively
small amounts of site work including foundation pouring and landscaping can be
done simultaneously with the container construction. This allows for about 50%
shorter construction time. Unlike conventional homes, container homes can be
easily added onto without needing to make large changes to the existing structure
since the modules are individually supported.
Shipping containers have some inherent disadvantages regarding their design and
previous uses. Since steel conducts heat very efficiently shipping containers must
be heavily insulated in extreme climates. Used shipping containers have possibly
been filled with food spills, pesticides, and lead paint. It is necessary to remove the
wood floor that they come with and seal or get rid of lead contaminated paint
entirely. Since shipping container architecture is new, and steel is an uncommon
structural material for homes, it can be difficult to acquire a zoning permit and for
the structure to pass building code.
Aside from some easily fixable inherent disadvantages with shipping containers, and
one very difficult to deal with issue concerning zoning and building code, container
homes create an elegant sector of green architecture. Companies like Intermodal
Design are creating simple and affordable housing solutions by taking advantage of
these structures. Other companies like Container Home Consultants Inc., run by
Alex Klein, are finding ways to help families help themselves by showing them the
relative ease of DIY shipping container (ISBU) home building compared to
conventional home construction.