Shipping Container Homes & Buildings

Shipping Container House with Dynamic Facade, Chile

Project: Casa Manifesto
Design: James & Mau, Infiniski
Area: 160 sqm
Year: 2009
Execution Time: 90 days
Total Cost: 79.000 €
Containers: 3
Location: Curacavi, Chile
Photography: Antonio Corcuera

Bioclimatic design, recycling, reuse, reduction of building materials; clean and renewable energy use. All these concepts converge in the Casa Manifesto - recycled shipping container house designed by James & Mau and built by Infiniski.

The structure consists of the three shipping containers, combined with other materials such as wood, recycled aluminum and others. The construction is based on a modular prefabricated design, which allows to limit transport costs and pollution on site. This system suggests the complete realization of the house design, integrating possible extensions - fast and consistent, in case the client's space needs will change over time.

In this case, the result is an inner area 160 m2 divided into two floors. The ground floor is occupied by a large common area, which includes living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and terraces. The master bedroom with bath, living room, two rooms with shared bathrooms and terraces form the area of the second floor.

Its location, on top of a hill dominating the landscape, generating a permeability in its east-west axis. Through a large glass area, the sensation of being in the most social area of the house is to be under a big bridge in the middle of nowhere.

The shipping container house is spread around this great common space with volumes much more closed in the north-south axis. At the same time intentionally, the construction system of the house is covered with skin, playing through its horizontal elements, generates a wealth of light and shade that helps to dematerialize the volumes. The house, with its materials, it becomes a living architectural object.

The shape of the shipping container house with dynamic facade itself responds to a bioclimatic design to suit the climat conditions of the place. So, the house "dresses" in summer and "undressing" winter sun through facades and roof skin. To achieve this architects used two types of skin: one based on fixed horizontal wood slats and other mobile pallet, which can be opened individually to control solar radiation. It also serves as ingenious aesthetic finish to help integrate it into its rural surroundings.

The inner enclosure is formed by recycled cellulose insulation projected onto the sheet inside the container and ecological finished panels of gypsum and cellulose fiber. With these elements of passive thermal insulation, and the incorporation of alternative energy technology (solar thermal panels) the recycled shipping container house achieves 70% energy independence.

Description by the project team.

On the top of a hill as if it were a castle or fortress, strategically located and dominating a wonderful landscape, this shipping container house generates a permeability in its east-west axis fading over the landscape through a large glazed space like who is under a large bridge in the middle of nowhere ... this effect being in the most social area of the house gives a special magic and warmth to this place where watching the sunrise or sunset can be a playful experience.

The shipping container house is distributed around this large space with much more closed volumes in the north-south axis contrasting with the open side and thus generating a volumetric tension towards one of the views, at the same time they are the construction system of the house but that of in an intentional way they are dressed by a skin that, playing through its horizontal elements, generates a wealth of light and shadow that in turn dematerialize the volumes, thus completing, as a whole, a living architectural object and in a “stand by” position.

Concept: Design by James & Mau for Infiniski showing the greatest potential of the Infiniski concept: bioclimatic design, recycling, reuse and reduction of construction materials, non-polluting building materials and systems, use of renewable energy.

Shipping container house of 160 sqm interiors divided into two floors: a living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and terraces on the ground floor; Main room with its bathroom, living room, two rooms with shared bathroom and terraces on the second floor.

The construction system works based on a modular design, prefabricated in the workshop that allows to limit transportation and pollution costs on site. The modular system allows us to think about the complete realization of the shipping container house, integrating possible rapid and coherent extensions in case the client's space needs change over time.

The Structure consists of three reused shipping containers. A container divided into two separate parts serves as a structural support for the two containers on the first floor. This porch-shaped structure creates an “inter-container” space that gives an extra surface, so that with only three containers (90m2) 160m2 are achieved. Thus the use of material is greatly reduced. In turn, the porch moves slightly on one side to create outdoor spaces with a terrace.

Form follows Energy. The shape of the house responds to a bioclimatic design that adapts according to the incidence of the climatic elements of the place. Thus the shipping container house is formed by a bridge beam system (porch) on the first floor that creates a vain on the ground floor. This is glazed on opposite facades so that they receive sun throughout the day and allows maximum ventilation. The house (portico) is deformed in the north-south axis, seeking and protecting itself from solar radiation from the north (southern hemisphere).

The house with dynamic facade "dresses and undresses" in summer and winter by means of a solar skin transventilated both on facades and on roofs (air separation chamber between skin and container facade / cover). It dresses with the skin in summer to protect itself from the sun creating a passive natural cooling effect. It undresses in winter to allow the incidence of the sun either on the sheet of the container or on the windows and create a passive natural heating effect.

Two types of façade skin were used: one based on fixed horizontal wood slats and another of mobile pallets that can be opened individually to control solar radiation. The skin of the cover is a light mesh of quitaipón according to the season of the year. The skin also serves as an aesthetic finish that is integrated into its rural environment.

The pergolas, allow to control the entrance of the direct sun through the windows. In the winter they rise to the maximum to allow the most widespread sun to enter and generate a greenhouse inside. In summer they are lowered more or less depending on the time of day and the outside temperature for a natural ventilation effect.

The interior enclosure is made up of recycled cellulose insulation projected on the inside of the container sheet and finished with ecological panels of cellulose fiber and plaster.

With these passive thermal insulation elements, and the incorporation of alternative energy technology (solar thermal panels) the house achieves an energy autonomy of 70%.

Recycled, reused and non-polluting materials:

- 40 ft High Cube reused shipping container for structure and enclosures
- Reused pallets for outer skin
- Sustainable forest wood for outer skin slats
- Projected cellulose of recycled newspaper for insulation of walls
- Recycled cellulose fiber panels
- Recycled galvanized steel for interior wall structure
- Ecological natural cork for ecological thermal insulation under floors
- Original 30mm plywood of the polished and varnished container for interior floors
- Reused Laurel wood from demolition floors for kitchen furniture and cabinets
- Reused Oregon pinewood with demolition beams for stair steps
- Fallebas (vertical closing bars) of reused container doors such as stair railing
- Ecological paint
- “Eco-label” tiles for bathroom tiles

The house achieves 85% (measured by weight) of recycled, reused and / or non-polluting materials.

Shipping Container Micro-House with Folding Wall, New Zealand

Drawings / Floor plan

About Atelierworkshop

Project: Port-A-Bach
Design: Atelierworkshop
Year: 2001 - 2006
Photography: Paul McCredie

Atelierworkshop believes shipping containers can be an effective answer for various scale architectural projects and if site access, portability, security, robustness are issues. This shipping container micro-house with folding wall was built in Hangzhou, China and transported to New Zealand. The prototype was a part of the exhibition of Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth (1/2013).

Description by project team.

The Port-A-Bach project by the architects of the Atelier Workshop is a shipping container micro-house built on the basis of a single transport container that has been set up on wheels for easy transport. The prototype was built in Hangzhou, China but has already been moved to New Zealand, where it is a permanent part of the collection of the Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth.

The shipping container micro-house can accommodate two adults and two children, and each inch was carefully designed to provide maximum comfort in the smallest space. Its interior is mostly made of wood - including a bathroom with an open shower, a sink and a composting toilet.

The kitchen has lots of storage furniture (some hidden, some exposed) and natural light filters in between your windows. The shipping container micro-house can be equipped with solar panels and rooftop wind turbines, allowing it to operate completely off-grid.

The flexible structure of the Port-A-Bach is able to unfold to expand connections to the outside and then to be closed again for relocation.

Features:

fully enclosed exterior steel shell (when folded up)
appointed with large internal storage cupboards and shelves / stainless steel kitchen and fittings / bathroom with open shower, sink, composting toilet,
interior fabric screen system gives the versatility of creating rooms within the large open living space : includes bunk beds, double bed room, dressing room, kitchen and bathroom
exterior canvas screen system allows to shelter the deck area for comfortable indoor/outdoor flow and living
6 concrete footings form a stable, non-invasive 'foundation', allowing you to situate the unit on a wide range of ground conditions

A holiday home:

portable
secure
high-level finish
designed to be environmentally clean
comparatively inexpensive
comfortably sleeps two adults and two children

That allows:

transportation
immediate, flexible and long-term solution that enables you to use your land without investing in a permanent property commitment
for future development, ideal for leased land situations
to be power, water and sewer independent, it is well suited to remote or non-service supplied land
also be connected to available services
quick and easy transportation (via truck or helicopter) and installation to any orientation with minimal impact on site
unfolding to create a living space and refolding to create a secure unit for in situ storage or relocation

Shipping containers in loft apartment, San Francisco, California

Two San Francisco travel and art addicts overhauled a loft apartment and customized two shipping containers to reflect their passions and accommodate their collection.

About Lundberg Design

Design	Lundberg Design
Year	2008
Location	San Francisco, California
Photography	Drew Kelly

When the San Francisco couple says they love to travel, they don't mean trips to Napa. Over the past three summers Wardell put 15,500 miles on a motorcycle he and Sagan keep in Milan on rides from the Arctic Circle to southwestern Portugal. When Wardell began collecting street art in the mid-1990s, he admits, “it quickly became an obsession.” When he began dating Sagan several years ago, “we got serious about buying big.” Starting with local graffiti artist Barry McGee, they bought ever-more ambitious installations by stars like Shepard Fairey, JR, and Os Gemeos until they needed a bigger home to accommodate their approximately 120-piece collection.

In February of 2007 they purchased a 3,200-square- foot former Chinese laundry and tooth-powder factory with column-free interiors and a zigzagging sawtooth roof in lower Pacific Heights. As a former VP of real estate for Williams-Sonoma, “Claudia knew right away it had excellent bones,” says Wardell, a former financial advisor. The travelers also loved how the 127-foot-long loft seemed to stretch out to the horizon. “I walked up those front stairs, and I felt like I was at the edge of a highway, like I could keep going forever,” Sagan says. “I loved that feeling.”

Where some might box the cavernous space into cozier rooms, Wardell and Sagan wanted “to cele- brate that length,” Sagan says. The apartment lies on a north-south axis with large windows at either end. To showcase the art and maximize daylight, they decided to situate the master bedroom at the back, away from the street, but keep everything else open, with a central kitchen and living room and a den facing the street. They hired a local company to sandblast the interior to expose the board-formed concrete walls and replaced the carpeted floors with Georgia hickory pecan planks the longest, knottiest boards they could find to further lengthen the loft and make it look more like a warehouse. The next question was, “how do we make a home office and a guest bedroom happen without cluttering the space?” Sagan says.

For the guest room, “we wanted something our friends would tell everyone they knew about, but not so comfortable they would never leave,” Wardell explains. He wanted it to be a self-contained space with a Murphy bed, an element he remembered fondly from a train ride he took across Europe in his 20s. After considering plunking the interior compartment of a Pullman train car in the middle of the apartment, they landed on shipping containers.

“I contacted Hapag-Lloyd looking for an orange one in newer condition,” Wardell says. “But they?re German. They have rules. They wouldn't sell us one, but they put out a call that these nuts in San Francisco wanted containers for their house. In late 2007, we got word that the Port of Oakland had some used ones.” Sagan examined several before choosing. “A ton are just a mess,” she says. “You'll see a huge dent in the side and go, Wow, a wave did that? It's important to smell them, too, because they pick up odors from their cargo.”

In 2008, while a container reseller prepped the containers (replacing the original pesticide-treated floors, repainting the walls, cutting out holes for windows and plumbing), a structural engineer and builder reinforced the loft's floor with wooden joists to accommodate the nine-ton load. The containers arrived by flatbed truck one morning in late July; by midday, a crane had lowered them in through an opening in the roof, cantilevering the blue one, Wardell?s future home office, atop the orange one, the guest room.

For the container interiors, “the mood we wanted was raw,” Wardell says. There was only one caveat: The guest room “had to pass the Dottie test,” Sagan says. Her mother would be their first visitor that Christmas. “She was mortified by the idea of sleeping in a container,” Sagan says. “She said it sounded like a coffin.”

To customize the apartment and containers, Wardell brought in Pat Carson, a furniture designer and builder who shares the couple's love for travel and industrial design. When asked why his pieces have so many rivets, Carson grins, “I'm that guy on the airplane by the window, staring at the wings.” Over six months Carson designed and constructed 75 custom fixtures for the apartment, many with a kinetic, gadget-like charm. “A lot of the creative ideas I've had in the past 20 years are manifested in this house,” Wardell says.

The carbon fiber dining table, for example, opens on a hinge to form a V, an L or a straight line, with ball casters embedded in the legs so it can glide easily. Woven-leather bar stools swivel between the table and the kitchen island. Surrounded by exposed copper piping, the guest bathroom's teak-and-steel sink evokes the utilitarian atmosphere of a train car or ship cabin; in the master bathroom, tilt-out shelves in the shower hide shampoos. Just about the only convertible fixture Carson didn't build in its entirety is the liquid crystal “privacy wall” in the guest bath, which changes from clear to opaque at the flick of a switch.

Shortly before Dottie arrived, Carson installed the custom Murphy bed, which is clad in aluminum with dozens of rivets and rolls up on a pulley made from a mill wheel. The unconventional guest room passed with flying colors. “She was pleasantly surprised at how spacious and comfortable it was,” Sagan says. It's been a hit with subsequent guests as well. “We've found the container self-selects,” Wardell says. “Our friends who are the most fun choose to stay here.”

Floor plans / Elevations

Construction

About Patrick Partouche

Project	Maison Container Lille
Architect	Patrick Partouche
Area	240 sq m
Containers	8
Bedrooms	3
Year	2010

Maison Container Lille 3 bedroom shipping container home is composed of 8 standard shipping containers stacked on top of each other in a staggered arrangement. The exterior was painted a vibrant cherry red and the interior features bright white walls accented by red columns and metal finish work. The roof is more of a protective covering than a true water shedding element, and works more like a shade screen to let air flow around the roof and keep it from overheating. The windows have low-e coatings and are filled with argon for greater efficiency.

Inside the 240 sq m 3 bedroom shipping container home, the bottom floor includes a one car garage, storage, kitchen, dining and living area with an open floor layout. Upstairs, part of the floors were cut out to create double height spaces for the ground floor. Metal catwalks cross the area to provide access to the three bedrooms, the bathroom and the office. Metal parts that were cut away from the containers were used to create furniture and decorative elements like artwork, tables and a bed.

Description by architect

Can an old dream come true?

The world is changing: Always faster, always stronger, always more expensive.

Innovation is necessary and of public utility! The new challenges of the planet, financial crises, media campaigns have changed mentalities.

A flaw in a traditional system of thought, in uses, in cultures and in architectural aesthetics.

New technologies and techniques allow the reduction of costs while bringing qualitative improvements. The production of prefabricated housing, more efficient, less expensive, inevitably represents the future of construction.

The modification container process is a first step in this process. The next step will be mass production on industrial assembly lines. In the service of accommodation, comfort, safety, performance.

Computerized design, manufacturing in the workshop under optimum working conditions for the workers. Road, sea and air transport. Assembly on site, in record time. All these criteria are emblematic of the emergence of a new architecture taking into account the constraints of the current world and its sustainability.

The old dream comes true!

Description

The 3 bedroom shipping container home is built from 8 prefabricated units, transported by truck and assembled on site using a crane.

The assembly lasted 3 days:

Day 1 - ground floor

Day 2 - second floor

Day 3 - roof

The units were designed from 40' shipping containers, recycled and modified.

The area is 240m2 on 2 levels with a technical crawl space.

The exterior aesthetics are in accordance with local regulations.

The interior aesthetics are in agreement with the customers:

a contemporary industrial style, the choice of noble and authentic materials: painted steel, galvanized, lacquered, varnished, aluminum, wood, polycarbonate, glass and other industrial materials.

Large and numerous windows provide a lot of natural light.

Decorative elements were created with recycled metal container sheets.

On the ground floor: the living room, the kitchen, the garage, the toilet, the laundry room.

Upstairs: 3 bedrooms + 1 office + the bathroom + the shower room + the wv and a fourth bedroom to be finished by the customer.

The courage and intelligence of the customers made it possible to design this house.

The know-how and professionalism of the companies made it possible to achieve it.

THERMAL and ACOUSTIC STUDY OF 06/26/2010 - Approved design office:

The energy and phonic performances are remarkable.

The construction principle allows, depending on future availability, to increase the label High Energy Performance (HPE), Very High Energy Performance (THPE) up to the Low Consumption Building (BBC) label, by simply adding equipment.

Label achieved RT 2005 (Th-Ce):

Cep = 194.8 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 6.74

Cepmax = 187.4 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 25.04

With accessories:

possible label HPE 2005 with exterior joinery equipment, Uw = 1.60

Cep = 173.18 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 21.7

possible label THPE 2005 with equipment of photovoltaic collectors,

Cep = 161.62 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 33.2

possible label THPE 2005 with thermodynamic water heater equipment,

Cep = 161.03 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 33.8

possible label THPE 2005 with equipment of an Air / water heat pump,

Cep = 114.32 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 80.5

possible BBC label with equipment for the 3 equipment,

Cep = 47.3 Kwehep / m2shon / year. Gain (%) / benchmark = + 147.5

Exceptional sound and acoustic performance:

Vertical and horizontal separation of each prefabricated unit.

Decameron - Low Budget Colorful Shipping Container Store, Brazil

This ISO container building was designed and built of six ISO containers and existing double height hangar structure, taking advantage of the cubic volume and the linearity of the container spaces. Huge sliding polycarbonate doors connect the building with an inner garden and the city.

Drawings

About Studio MK27

Project: Decameron
Design: Studio MK27
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Containers: 6
Site area: 540 sqm
Built area: 250 sqm
Architect: Marcio Kogan
Co-architects: Mariana Simas
Architecture team: Danilo Terra, Maria Cristina Motta, Oswaldo Pessano, Pedro Tuma
Interiors team: Diana Radomysler
Landscape designer: Renata Tilli
Structure engineer: Pouguett Engenharia e Projetos
General contractor: Terra Gaia
Project year: May 2008
Completion year: January 2011
Photographer: Pedro Vannucchi

In a trendy spot on the most popular decoration street in the city, Gabriel Monteiro da Silva Mall, the last empty lot remained.

The client rented the land and instructed the architect to develop a very low-cost project, something that could be quickly built, respecting the existing trees.

The idea was to use shipping containers, reuse a finished object, a surplus from the current intense exchange of goods.

The project was organized into two container tunnels, taking advantage of the linearity of their internal spaces, and a double-height hangar connected to them, a contrasting cubic volume. Huge polycarbonate sliding doors connect the store with the city and an internal garden.

About Echo Tech Design

About 44 West Construction

Project	The Tim Palen Studio at Shadow Mountain
Design	Walter Scott Perry, Echo Tech Design
Contractor	Eric Engheben, 44 West Construction
Containers	6
Area	1,200 SF living area + 1,000 SF film studio
Bedrooms	1
Bathrooms	1
Location	Joshua Tree, California, USA
Year	2010
Cost	$150/SF
Photography	Jack Parsons

The modular shipping container home is composed of diverse steel elements, including: 6 repurposed containers, a 10,000 gallon water tank, a Butler pre-engineered building, and a steel shade canopy with integrated metal framing system that provides wind, fire and earthquake protection, extraordinary strength, as well as large door and window openings to maximize cooling, ventilation, and natural daylighting. An adjustable, bolt-on shade and steel frame system creates wind, glare and 50% solar heat reduction on the house; solar breezeway creates suitable location for plug-in attachment of future water heating panel and solar electric arrays.

By combining mass-produced and high-efficiency modular construction methods with contemporary innovative design in one of the most harsh climate zones in United States, designers have developed a sustainable and low-cost housing system that can be delivered and quickly assembled anywhere in the world.

Description from architects

A prototype hybrid house, also known as the Tim Palen Studio at Shadow Mountain is the first repurposed container home permitted and built in the Mojave Desert. Based on the fuel-efficient Prius automobile engineering concept, the residence combines the energy and production efficiencies of diverse pre-engineered building and energy systems working together seamlessly to produce a smooth-running hybrid green machine for living.

The residence is a prototype of 2nd generation pre-fab design and a kit-like housing product developed by ecotechbuild, the design-build subsidiary of ecotechdesign. It is constructed from 5-20′ long recycled cargo containers that were fabricated and finished in Los Angeles and then shipped to the site where they were erected and stacked 2 high in 15 minutes each. All site work, including foundations and utility placement was constructed at the remote desert site during container fabrication in Los Angeles.

The residence is the 1 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath, 2 story model hybridhouse_1 design that has been adapted for a media client who required a separate photo studio and storage building. The studio is constructed of a Butler pre-engineered steel building with plug-in cargo container storage. It is naturally daylite with 22″ dia. Solutubes, which can be manually controlled and temperature balanced using efficient, dimmable strip lighting.

The container residence and the pre-engineered, steel studio structure act as two bookends that support framing and, in turn a perforated metal shade canopy that wraps the container’s roof, south-facing steel walls and the dramatic 20′ high outside living space, aka solar breezeway to provide protection against desert heat, glare, wind and blowing sand. The breezeway, in turn moderates and then directs a flow of air through the container spaces to enhance passive cooling. A naturally lit, steel-clad stair structure connects the 2 level stacked containers and doubles as a 20′ story high photo gallery in which to display artwork.

Other features include:

Hybrid House Design: based on the efficient Prius engineering concept, the hybrid house concept combines diverse, pre-engineered building and energy conservation features to maximize efficiency and cost savings, while offering architectural design flexibility and variation.
All Recycled Steel Construction: the project is composed of diverse components, including: (6) repurposed ISO cargo containers, a Butler pre-engineered building, a 10,000 gal. storage tank, at solar shade canopy and an integrated steel framing system that provides extraordinary strength, earthquake, fire and wind protections, as well as large window and door openings to maximize natural daylighting, ventilation and cooling.
Solar Home Shading System: a bolt-on, adjustable steel frame and perforated metal shade system creates 50% solar heat, glare and wind reduction on the building and solar breezeway and allows for the plug-in attachment of future solar electric and water heating panel arrays.
Living Roof System: movable, bolt and add-on modules use greywater irrigation and are planted with native desert plants and sedums to absorb heat, glare, dust and CO2.
Water Conservation: integrated greywater for irrigation, water harvesting and storage systems.
Energy Conservation: an innovative steel framework allows for the placement of a “cool roof” and insulation system and a triple wall insulation system combine to create a building envelope that exceeds California energy code requirements by 50%. All appliances, fixtures and heating systems are Energy Star rated.
Reduced Costs: Finished construction costs, including footings and sitework was $150/SF, far below construction costs for comparable prefab home or manufactured home construction.

About BlueBrown

Design	BlueBrown
Containers	2 x 20 ft

This simple shipping container home is made of two 20 ft containers and located in Thailand not far from Bangkok. The home has 1 bedroom, living area and embedded prefab bathroom unit. The containers are insulated with recycled thermal insulation with roof layer above the home to prevent the transmission of heat into the habitable areas.

Detached roof on this shipping container home is heated by the sun in the same way as a regular roof, but a detached roof transfers less heat to the living space.

Video

Location

About BNIM

About Home Contained

Project	Glassberg Container House
Design and build	BNIM and Home Contained (Debbie Glassberg)
Containers	5
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
Area	2000 sq ft
Year	2008
Location	Kansas City, Missouri

While homes made of containers is not a new idea, this ocean shipping container house design is unique in how it combine spaces and areas that nurture the inhabitants. Delightful to be in and easy to maintain, these spaces are inspiring and generous. The designer created three kinds of spaces: Container Space offers unique livable areas, Contained Space – the area created between two or more containers and Uncontained Space – which is the area beyond the building, integrally connected to an overall structure.

Description from builders

BNIM collaborated with Debbie Glassberg to design her new residence constructed from five shipping containers in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. The containers, pieced together with a steel and concrete framework, create space for two bedrooms, an office, television room, kitchen, dining area, living room and three bathrooms. The pre-fabricated containers are taller than typical shipping containers, allowing for large windows that create an open and light-filled space. The roof of the two-story residence includes an edible garden and patio.

This small shipping container home can be used as a spare room, studio, home office, sleepout or anything you want. The transportable 20 foot container unit can include various home devices for any taste and budget and so generates portable rooms with various functionality and can be delivered anywhere in the world.

Design: One Cool Habitat

Floor plans / Drawings

About Adam Kalkin

About Sheridan Corporation

About Industrial Zombie

Architect	Adam Kalkin
Builder	Sheridan Corporation
Project	Adriance House
Containers	12
Area	4,000 sq feet (371 sq m)
Cost	$125/square foot
Location	Northern Maine
Photography	Peter Aaron/Esto

This beautiful container home was built by stacking twelve shipping containers and replacing some of the steel container walls with large windows. The design creates the feeling as if there are exterior entrances, courtyards and houses within the building. By using inexpensive, readily available shipping containers to built the home, the architect managed to keep the cost of this beautiful container home at about $125/square foot.

Description by designboom

Architect Adam Kalkin combines 12 shipping containers inside a larger structure to create the Adriance House in Northern Maine. The shipping container home uses the containers partially for structure, supporting a glazed glass structure that envelops the home. The containers flank the two side walls of the home and on the ground floor are open to reveal the kitchen and the living area. Two steel staircases lead up to the second level of containers where the bedrooms are located. The whole space covers close to 4000 square feet and features a double height garage door style opening that connects the entire home to the outdoors. Kalkin worked with butler to construct the shipping container home. Butler has a long history with pre-fabricated architecture, having worked with Buckminster Fuller in the 1940’s on his dymaxion deployment unit.

Description by mainehomedesign

In a region filled with green-shuttered, white-clapboarded, quintessential New England homes, it’s a stunning sight to come upon a life-vest orange, corrugated-metal home with expansive glass walls. Made from twelve industrial shipping containers, the home is anything but traditional or expected, and yet the Adriance home somehow seems entirely in harmony with the rugged, rocky coastline. The home is built from twelve containers divided into two groups of six. The containers are stacked on top of each other like Legos, and the two container sections are connected by a glass-walled, open-concept central room with a ceiling that soars to 25 feet.

How did this example of cutting-edge architecture end up in a quaint town in Maine? Transfixed by the summers she spent in Blue Hill Bay during her youth, Anne Adriance wanted to continue the tradition as an adult, bringing her husband, Matthew, and their two sons into the fold. Adriance admitted that, when they initially purchased the secluded, 10-acre plot, she didn’t have a strong sense of what she wanted in a home, design-wise. Her only thought was that it would probably make sense to work with a local architect, someone who would have ready access to the site. But Adriance soon found herself consulting with her friend Adam Kalkin, an architect from New Jersey—where, ironically, the Adriances live in a classical Victorian home. Ultimately, it was Adriance and Kalkin’s creative compatibility that led to their partnership on the project.

Kalkin, a Vassar College graduate, is known for pushing the envelope in both art and design. He first became fascinated with containers in the 1990s while using them in his artwork. He has since made a name for himself in the emerging field of “cargotecture.” Kalkin completed the Collector’s House, another container structure, for the Shelburne Museum during the latter planning stages of the Adriance home, and the two structures share several similarities, including the bold use of vibrant orange transoceanic shipping containers. Renowned interior designer Albert Hadley also worked on both projects.

Working with the steel shipping containers requires skills more often found in commercial construction, so Kalkin contracted Sheridan Corporation, one of Maine’s largest commercial builders, to install and weld the metal containers. Then the Brooklin-based construction firm Prin A. Allen & Sons, Inc., completed the finish work. Sheridan’s foreman, Doug Cutchin, now retired after more than forty years, said that, looking back, the Adriance home was “the frosting on the cake—marrying a modern, utilitarian design to an old Downeast setting.”

Surry Gardens, another local company, created a soothing Japanese garden in the rocky soil, as well as a striking wall of Rosa rugosa (beach roses) near the driveway. In front of the house, they also planted an array of—you guessed it—orange lilies of multiple hues that bloom from spring to fall.

The outdoors is integral to Kalkin’s architectural vision for the home. One of the most magnificent features of the house is an enormous glass-paned garage door, which can be opened onto a back deck where glimpses of the ocean can be seen through the surrounding fir trees. The garage door remains open for most of summer, even during rainstorms, and the subtle sound of raindrops on the metal roof has become one of Adriance’s favorite aspects of living in the container home. Flowing, floor-to-ceiling microfiber drapes gently frame the glass ends of the house, simultaneously counterbalancing the rigid metal architecture and acting as a raincoat when drawn.

Early on, Adriance, herself an artist whose delicate watercolors adorn the walls, decided that the project’s success necessitated that she “just give over to [Kalkin’s] ideas and his vision and go with it.” She adds that “it was such a dramatic and bold kind of decision to design the house the way it is that anything I changed would sort of change the vision.” And with this single act of trust, the container house was born. “There’s this big open room where everybody can be together, and then there’s the privacy of having your own little container and being able to close the curtains and be in your own little space,” Adriance says. “Being up in these upstairs bedrooms is so great—you feel like you’re in a tree house.” In contrast to the bright-orange, corrugated-metal walls of the communal space, the sheetrock walls of the intimate containers seem conventional.

The decision to intensify the containers’ natural, rust-orange color surprised Adriance, who had originally envisioned a dark-green color that would blend into the landscape. But Adriance again deferred to Kalkin’s vision, and she now believes that the orange not only maintains the integrity of the containers, but that the color is in keeping with the structure’s overall authenticity. “Things are what they are. They’re not disguised…You see where things were welded. You see how things were put together. There is not an intent to hide where something’s bolted. It is what it is, and that’s part of the beauty of it.” Yet underlying this transparent approach to construction is the aura of mystery surrounding each shipping container’s history, about which Adriance admits to pondering. One almost wishes the containers came with passports, or the exotic labels of vintage luggage, to document their global journeys.

The two teak staircases and upstairs hallways on each side of the house resemble the decking on a boat, further illustrating the seaside home’s connection to its seafaring past. The teak is coated with a clear varnish, allowing the wood’s natural radiance to shine through. Skylights let in natural light at the top of the staircases, where the metal ceiling starts its rise to the peak.

Located in the heart of the home, and accenting the teak stairs, is a rustic wooden farmhouse table that seats fifteen, facilitating large gatherings. The green microfiber drapes, a 12-foot-long custom couch, and large, overstuffed armchairs intentionally sized to compete with the scale of the massive room were all Albert Hadley’s inspirations. But it was Adriance who filled the home with local artwork, including Glimmer, an ocean scene painted by Tom Curry. Adriance also added whimsical wooden animal statues by Dan Falt, a former Wall Street trader who returned home to Maine and took up sculpting. Adriance is also responsible for what is perhaps the home’s pièce de résistance—the humorous (and fake) moose head installed prominently above the kitchen island.

Kalkin himself designed the two bronze lamps that bookend the couch. When Adriance was asked if the architect normally designs lighting or other accessories to go with his designs, she laughed and said that she wouldn’t say “normally” about anything the versatile, imaginative Kalkin dreams up. Adriance also says that this unconventional home is in many ways more functional than her family’s traditional New Jersey home. She loves the container home’s openness and ease of maintenance. The home’s cement floors are easily swept or vacuumed, and the radiant-heat system makes damp days and early winter mornings comfortable.

Adriance takes evident pride in her house—a pride that is clearly justified. She describes Kalkin’s design as one that “makes you stop and notice it. But it does it in a way that has you really consider your notions of What is house? What is home?” As for her own home, Adriance eloquently says that she sees it “as a work of immense creativity and art itself. It is our home for sure, but it has always been more than that for me.”

Video

Construction

Frequently Asked Questions

About Maison Idekit

Architect and Owner	Bernard Morin
Design	Maison Idekit
Area	3,000 square feet
Containers	7
Bedrooms	4
Year	2008
Location	St. Adele, Quebec, Canada
Project cost	$175,000

This 3,000 square feet cargo container home in Quebec has four bedrooms. In the seven cargo units home the container walls are exposed on the inside. On the outside, the container home walls have five inches of thermoinsulation that is topped by wood siding. This energy-efficient, durable and bright inside home cost about $175,000 to build.

A Quebec architect and his wife have transformed seven old steel shipping containers into a contemporary architectural gem in Ste. Adele, Quebec, Canada.

Rather than spend about $400,000 to build their 3,000-square-foot dream home out of wood, the couple decided to use an eco-friendly alternative at the bargain price of $175,000.

The home is the first project of Joyce Labelle and Bernard Morin's company Maison Idekit Home, and the first of its kind in Quebec.

Labelle and Morin began building their three-bedroom house in 2007, and the next year they moved in with their six children.

The main pieces of the house were the steel shipping containers, six metres high and 2.5 metres wide.

The containers have been arranged in an unconventional Cubist design, taking advantage of the natural slope setting -- nestled in the woods of St. Adele, northwest of Montreal. Some containers are stacked upright, others on their sides or stacked on top of each other.

The master bedroom departs from the main portion of the house and a large balcony encircles the back supported by stilts. It's like a big Lego project.

Widows of different sizes and shapes have been cut into the containers. Five inches of urethane insulation have been added to outer layer, and then finally protected by brown wood siding.

Indoors, many of the walls retain the corrugated look of the standard shipping containers. The original dents and serial numbers add to the character of the home.

The container concept has been a dream of Morin's for years, Labelle said.

"He used to be an architect for many years. He had this dream to transform containers, but it wasn't the proper time," she told.

But these days, building environmentally-friendly housing is also a good business proposition, and this was an ideal time for the couple to build their first prototype.

For the past years architects thinking green have used shipping containers to provide affordable housing. They've also been used for shelters in hurricane-prone areas in the United States, for student housing in Holland and for a residential development in London, England called "Container City."

After withstanding the punishing weather of the high seas, the containers make for durable homes. The hurricane-proof containers are resistant to rust, mould, termites and fire.

The constructive concept developed by Bernard Morin is simple but innovative. At the start there are shipping containers and, on arrival, a contemporary detached house. The Quebec architect has been convinced, for nearly twenty-five years, that steel caissons can be as useful in the field of construction as in that of transport. To inhabit them, he explains that it is enough simply "to transform them then to juxtapose them or to superimpose them". Only here it is: despite the ingenuity of the system, its customers have never dared to go beyond the conceptual stage. To convince them, Bernard Morin had to set an example ...

A house assembled in 3 hours

First step of the project: find land. Wishing to live in harmony with nature, the architect finally opted - after two years of research - for a wooded plot located in Sainte-Adèle, north of Montreal.

As the plans for the house were complex, it was necessary to have seven sea containers delivered by truck. A singular moment of which Jocelyne Labelle, the architect's companion, keeps a strong memory: "of all the stages of the site, the arrival of sea containers on the ground is the one that impressed me the most", says -she. The containers, which serve as the load-bearing structure for the house, were installed on the foundation in just half a day. "You just had to fit the pieces together like in a lego game", laughs Bernard Morin. The rest of the work was spread over ten months. A period of time during which the couple got down to transforming the containers: integrating openings and insulating them, preferably from the outside in order to conserve as much living space as possible.

The end result is stunning since, thanks to the presence of an exterior facing, the existence of the containers is completely erased. For the architect, the use of end-of-life shipping containers in construction is above all of ecological interest. Instead of being abandoned in ports, steel boxes are indeed recycled. The shipping container house also wins because it is assembled quickly, has good mechanical resistance and, above all, is scalable.

To expand it, you just need to add a container or two, as needed. A practical solution already implemented in existing homes on the outskirts of Montreal. This is undoubtedly a first step before moving on to the construction of individual houses exclusively made up of containers. Moreover, according to the market study carried out by Bernard Morin, self-builders in North America and Europe could well be the first to get started!

About Numen Development

About Christopher Robertson

Project	Cordell House
Design	Christopher Robertson, Numen Development
Containers	1x 20 ft, 2x 40 ft plus 1x 40 ft guest unit
Bedrooms	3
Area	1,858 sq ft
Location	Houston, Texas
Photography	Jack Thompson

Despite unconventional building elements of this shipping container home, the architects created a traditional rectangular home plan. Outside, the three units, one 20-foot container and two 40-foot containers form the three facades, with a glass wall to the fourth completing the perimeter of the home. The master suite is placed in the 40-foot unit; the second bedroom and an opening for the playroom and office, also take up the 40-foot module; and the laundry and kitchen rooms house the 20-foot container. Outside 400 sq ft deck connects the house to a 40 foot container that inhabits the storage shed and guest quarters.

This shipping container home in Houston, Texas, was designed for a speculative builder, however, it sold prior to completion and thus reflects the personality of its owners. When investigating the use of containers, we quickly concluded that thinking of them as 8′ thick walls rather than as rooms made the most sense. We were able to program the “walls” with functions that fit in that tight dimension like bathrooms, a kitchen, and closets. The primary space of the house however is created in the center of a U-shaped arrangement of three containers. A fourth container houses a small guest suite and acts as a site wall that encloses a small court yard.

Construction

About Leger Wanaselja Architecture

Design	Leger Wanaselja Architecture
Project	Boucher Grygier Shipping Container House
Containers	3x40' refrigerated shipping containers
Bedrooms	3
Area	1350 sqft
Location	San Francisco, California, USA
Year	2007
Construction	Scott Bailey
Photographs	Leger Wanaselja Architecture

This refrigerated shipping container home in San Francisco, California, incorporates three pre-insulated containers into the structure of this three bedroom, 1350 square foot house. Made to withstand tremendous loads and, with built-in refrigerated units, to keep low constant temperature, these refrigerated shipping containers make excellent architecture building blocks and they easily meet the existing building codes.

Description by architects

Re-purposing used refrigerated shipping containers is extremely resource efficient. The containers act as a weatherproof exterior siding, insulation, and structural frame. Minimal insulation needs to be added at the roof and floor. Framing is only needed where bay windows and interior partition walls are added. Waterproofing is only needed where windows and doors are added. Aside from the containers, which make up most of the building, green materials include:

▪ blown in cellulose insulation at the roof
▪ 50% flyash concrete foundation
▪ “green seal” low-voc paint on the interior
▪ water-based urethane finish on the wood
▪ 100% wool carpet and bamboo flooring

The house was also designed to minimize energy use through passive solar design. Deep eaves minimize summer solar gain, while allowing winter solar heating. Well placed windows supply excellent daylighting and summer ventilation. Additional energy and water saving features such as stacked plumbing, roof rainwater collection, high efficacy lighting, and Solatubes further reduce ecological impacts.

Construction

Location

Design	Ross Stevens
Containers	3
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
Location	Wellington, New Zealand
Photographs	Petra Alsbach-Stevens

This prefab modular shipping container home built into hill, is an excellent example of industrial design in residential housing. Re-use of sea containers make the price of this 3 container 4 story home very attractive. The shipping containers are quite durable, allow designers to widely combine the arrangement of premises and provide great opportunities for architects of modular houses.

All three levels are homely, cozy and offer the modern comforts of a contemporary house with many more quirky features conventional houses don't have. Two large outdoor decks face towards a beautiful leafy Greywacke rock face as well as your own private waterfall - a great place to entertain friends and have dinners and drinks.

Superb indoor/outdoor flow into a kitchen ensures a relaxed living space with dining table. The top floor media/cinema room is great for kids to enjoy a movie or play video games. The pool room offers great billiard table and sofa seating.

Three unique bedrooms can sleep up to 6 people with extra bedding available for 2 more guests. There are 2 bathrooms, 8 seater spa pool with jet bubbles and outdoor shower for the brave.

Construction

Floor plans

About SG Blocks

Project	Beach Box
Design	Andrew Anderson and SG Blocks
Containers	6
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
Area	2000 square feet
Exterior deck area	1300 square feet
Location	Amagansett Dunes, East Hampton, New York, USA
Year	2011

This modular container home is located about 600 feet from the ocean and is consist of six modules made of shipping containers. In the four containers on the ground level there are four bedrooms, in the two containers on top there are dining room, living room and open kitchen. The home's features are white oak floors, cypress decking and siding, white thermoplastic roof, spray foam insulation, energy-efficient windows and Energy Star appliances.

Description from 27east.com - Jan 22, 2018

At the time it was built, it was novel. Seven years later, it’s still an East End oddity—even though it doesn’t appear all that peculiar at first glance.

Located on the Napeague Stretch in Amagansett along Montauk Highway, the Beach Box is a beach house like any other, except this summer retreat is constructed from six used shipping containers.

The nearly 2,000-square-foot residence built in 2011 sits on 0.17 acre and has four bedrooms, two full bathrooms and one half-bath. There is also a custom chef’s kitchen and white oak floors. Outside are 1,300 square feet of decking and a heated pool, plus a new roof deck. The siding is cypress and the decking is cedar—all certified sustainable materials.

Douglas Elliman real estate broker Andrew Anderson developed Beach Box, with ambitions that it would be the first of six to be built on the South Fork in a two-year period. However, the first Beach Box is still the only one.

Mr. Anderson explained on Friday that after Beach Box he moved on to a much higher end construction model that shipping containers were not suited for. Now the East Hampton-based firm that he’s a part of, MAP Development, builds spec houses in the $4 million to $7 million range.

“There are some constraints with container construction that would have become cost prohibitive for me to accomplish what I need to, to sell at that price point,” Mr. Anderson said. “If I were to build something in the Beach Boxes price category again, I would certainly revisit the use of containers for a project like that.”

To construct Beach Box, MAP Development partnered with SG Blocks of Brooklyn Heights, which makes everything from retail locations and Starbucks cafés to military barracks out of retired steel shipping containers that otherwise would have been melted down.

A standard shipping container has an 8-foot ceiling height, which is lower than what is desired in high-end residential construction, Mr. Anderson noted. While the boxes can be cut and stacked to achieve greater ceiling heights, that would undermine the benefits of building with shipping containers.

“The more you start to manipulate the boxes, the less cost effective it is, and you also start losing the sustainability,” Mr. Anderson said.

Because the boxes are manipulated to accommodate windows, doors, stairs and more before they are delivered to the building site, they can be assembled in just one day, which was the case with Beach Box.

Beach Box asked $1,395,000 when it hit the market in 2012. It was sold in 2013 for $975,000, a considerable discount.

Mr. Anderson attributed the gap between the original asking price and the final sale price to the fact that Beach Box is located right on the heavily trafficked Montauk Highway. “It was harder to overcome than we had anticipated,” he said.

The purchaser was officially listed as Casa Di Bianco Sabio, a limited liability company. The name is Italian, and it translates to “House of White Sand.”

The man behind the LLC was William White, the president and CEO of broadcast promotions agency Firefly Creative Entertainment Group. Mr. White candidly explained Friday that he chose the Italian name to give the property “some cache” and to identify it as something other than a “shipping container house.”

“You would never know, unless someone told you,” Mr. White said of Beach Box’s unconventional building materials. “The only thing that’s exposed, as far as the shipping container, is an accent wall in the downstairs foyer—and it’s just more for architectural design effects—and then also the ceiling of the top floor has the shipping container exposed. Other than that, you would never know.”

When he reveals his beach house is made out of shipping containers, it raises eyebrows.

“My friends in Connecticut, they’re a little poshy, and they keep going, ‘Don’t you live in a dumpster?” Mr. White said.

He tells them, “No, it’s 2,000 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths”

“Isn’t it a tiny house?” they persist, to which he reiterates it is “2,000 square feet, with 3,000 feet of exterior decking.”

“They are just kind of kidding around, but still, people in their minds, they have no idea what a shipping container house is, and they still think it’s probably flimsy, or to them it’s just a step above a tin shed with a garden,” Mr. White said.

The reality is quite different.

“It’s pretty grand and it’s wide open space, especially having it being reversed, with the bedrooms downstairs and the main living upstairs.”

And because of all the windows, the views are spectacular, he added.

Deciding to take further advantage of the views—the Atlantic Ocean less than 1,000 feet to the south and Napeague Harbor an even shorter distance to the north—Mr. White added a rooftop deck to Beach Box this past May.

“It’s spectacular, not only sunrises, but sunsets,” he said.

Now, Mr. White has put Beach Box on sale for more than double the original purchase price. It hit the market in the fall for $2,250,000, though the asking price was reduced to $2,100,000 in November.

He said that as much as he enjoys Beach Box, he had gotten little use of out it of late because now his career requires him to spend more time in Los Angeles—his company produces promos for FX shows such as “American Horror Story” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” and he is developing a feature film.

“If it sells it’s great,” Mr. White said. “If it doesn’t sell, I still get to keep it.”

He said that what attracted him to Beach Box in the first place is that “it is a quintessential beach house,” just a quick walk to the ocean and the Lobster Roll.

“When you go to the Hamptons, you think beach, not country cottage in the middle of a farm,” Mr. White said.

Floor plans

About ARQtainer

Project	Casa Liray
Design	ARQtainer
Containers	3x20 ft and 2x40 ft
Area	115 m² (1240 ft²)
Project cost	$75,000 USD
Building time	3 month
Location	Colina, Chile
Year	2010

This earthquake-resistant modular shipping container home was made with three 20-foot and two 40-foot shipping containers. The customers wanted an earthquake-proof home at an affordable price, and architects were able to deliver a home design to suit client's needs using the shipping container as the structure. The earthquake-resistant modular shipping container home was built for about $75,000 USD in three months.

Three 20-foot containers have the kitchen and living room, while two 40-foot containers have the bathrooms and bedrooms. Original shipping container flooring was replaced with quality hardwood flooring. The builder insulated the ceiling and walls with spray-applied cellulose to avoid acoustic and thermal bridges, installed energy-efficient windows and then finished the interior.

Description from architects.

The project is created by the need of the client to build a house quickly, earthquake resistant and low cost, programmatically all set in 115 m². Maritime containers are chosen because these inherently present all these characteristics, because they have a strong structure, already defined modular spaces and mainly constructive speed due to the fact that a large part of their execution was developed in a workshop, being transferred with a good percentage of advance to the site, reducing auditory pollution and the impact generated by a construction site.

The work was located on a plot of 6775 m² and at its eastern end to maintain distance from the road and to obtain views towards the Andes mountain range, rising 55 cm above the ground level to give it more height and separate it from the soil. The lower space is used for installations.

Volumetrically it is defined by 5 shipping containers: two 40-foot containers that spatially house the private areas (bedrooms), plus three of 20 feet that contain the public spaces (living, dining room, kitchen) and the service, the articulation of these areas is made up of two spaces defined by attached structures, an access hall and a service patio, giving space and volumetric continuity to the house.

In order to respect the required square meters, the façade is set back in the bedroom area, adjusting it towards the corridor.

Taking advantage of the strong structure offered by the containers, a terrace was installed on the living and dining area to take advantage of the distant views and at the ends of the first level the pre-existing doors were used to structure the balconies.

Regarding the subject of insulation, walls and ceiling were isolated with cellulose wool, which has good thermal and acoustic characteristics of high efficiency. Thermopanels and cross vents also added to control heat in summer.