Shipping container architecture - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Shipping container architecture is a form of architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

using steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

intermodal container

Intermodal container

An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...

s (shipping containers) as structural element, because of their inherent strength, wide availability and relatively low cost.

Advantages

Strength and durability

Shipping containers are in many ways an ideal building material. They are designed to carry heavy loads and to be stacked in high columns. They are also designed to resist harsh environments - such as on ocean-going vessels or sprayed with road salt while transported on roads. Due to their high strength, containers are useful for secure storage.

Modular

All shipping containers are made to standard measurements and as such they provide modular elements that can be combined into larger structures. This simplifies design, planning and transport. As they are already designed to interlock for ease of mobility during transportation, structural construction is completed by simply emplacing them. Due to the containers' modular design additional construction is as easy as stacking more containers. They can be stacked up to 12 high when empty.

Transport

Pre-fabricated modules can also be easily transported by ship, truck or rail, because they already conform to standard shipping sizes.

Availability

Used shipping containers are available across the globe.

Cost

Many used containers are available at a cost that is low compared to a finished structure built by other labour-intensive means such as bricks and mortar — which also require larger more expensive foundations. Construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...

involves very little labour and used shipping containers requiring only simple modification can be purchased from major transport companies for as little as US$1,200 each. Even when purchased brand new they seldom cost more than US$6000.

Disadvantages

Temperature

Steel conducts heat very well; containers used for human occupancy in an environment with extreme temperature variations will normally have to be better insulated than most brick, block or wood structures.

Labour

The welding

Welding

Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...

and cutting of steel is considered to be specialized labour and can increase construction costs, yet overall the costs are still lower than conventional construction.

Construction site

The size and weight of the containers will, in most cases, require them to be placed by a crane or forklift. Traditional brick, block and lumber construction materials can often be moved by hand, even to upper stories.

Building permits

The use of steel

Steel

for construction, while prevalent in industrial construction, is not widely used for residential structures. Obtaining building permits may be troublesome in some regions due to municipalities not having seen this application before.

Treatment of timber floors

To meet Australian Government quarantine requirements most container floors when manufactured are treated with insecticides containing Copper (23-25%) Chromium (38-45%) and Arsenic (30-37%) Before human habitation floors should be removed and safely disposed of.

Cargo spillages

A container can carry a wide variety of cargo during its working life. Spillages or contamination may have occurred on the inside surfaces and may have to be cleaned before habitable. Ideally all internal surfaces should be abrasive blasted

Abrasive blasting

Abrasive blasting is the operation of forcibly propelling a stream of abrasive material against a surface under high pressure to smooth a rough surface, roughen a smooth surface, shape a surface, or remove surface contaminants. A pressurized fluid, typically air, or a centrifugal wheel is used to...

to bare metal, and re-painted with a non toxic paint system.

Solvents

Solvents released from paint and sealants used in manufacture might be harmful.

Examples

Many structures based on shipping containers have already been constructed, and their uses, sizes, locations and appearances vary widely.

When futurist Stewart Brand

Stewart Brand

Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...

needed a place to assemble all the material he needed to write How Buildings Learn
How Buildings Learn
How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built is an illustrated book on the evolution of buildings and how buildings adapt to changing requirements over long periods. It was written by Stewart Brand and published by Viking Press in 1994...

, he converted a shipping container into office space, and wrote up the conversion process in the same book.

In 2006, Southern California Architect Peter DeMaria

Peter DeMaria

Peter DeMaria is an American architect and artist known for his non-conventional use of materials and construction/fabrication methodologies.-Early life and education:DeMaria was born in Madison, New Jersey...

, designed the first two story shipping container home in the U.S. as an approved structural system under the strict guidelines of the nationally recognized Uniform Building Code (UBC). This home was the Redondo Beach House and it inspired the creation of Logical Homes, a cargo container based pre-fabricated home company. In 2007, Logical Homes created their flagship project - the Aegean, for the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Several architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s, such as Adam Kalkin have built original homes, using discarded shipping containers for their parts or using them in their original form, or doing a mix of both.

In 2000, the firm Urban Space Management completed the project called Container City I
Container City
Container City is a trademark of "Urban Space Management". It is principally a means of utilising standard shipping containers, at the end of their life, to produce flexible accommodation and offices at low cost....

in the Trinity Buoy Wharf

Trinity Buoy Wharf

Trinity Buoy Wharf, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, is the site of London's only lighthouse, by the confluence of the River Thames and Bow Creek, at Leamouth. The lighthouse no longer functions, and is the home of various art projects such as Longplayer...

area of London. The firm has gone on to complete additional container-based building projects, with more underway. In 2006, the Dutch company Tempohousing finished in Amsterdam the biggest container village in the world: 1,000 student homes from modified shipping containers from China.

In 2002 standard ISO shipping containers began to be modified and used as stand-alone on-site wastewater treatment plants. The use of containers creates a cost-effective, modular, and customizable solution to on-site wastewater treatment and eliminates the need for construction of a separate building to house the treatment system.

Brian McCarthy, an MBA student, saw many poor neighborhoods in Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...

, Mexico during an MBA field trip in the 2000s. Since then he developed prototypes of shipping container housing for typical maquiladora

Maquiladora

A maquiladora or maquila is a concept often referred to as an operation that involves manufacturing in a country that is not the client's and as such has an interesting duty or tariff treatment...

workers in Mexico.

Application for the Live Event & Entertainment Industry:
in 2010 German Architect and Production Designer, Stefan Beese

Stefan Beese

Stefan Beese is a German-American production designer and architect. He emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1999, where he founded the firm beesign in Los Angeles.-Early life and education:...

, utilized six 40’ long shipping containers to create a large viewing deck and a VIP lounge area for to substitute the typical grand stand scaffold structure at the Voodoo Music Experience, New Orleans. . The containers also smartly do double duty as storage space for other festival components throughout the year.
The two top containers are cantilevered nine feet on each side creating two balconies that are prime viewing locations. There are also two bars located on the balconies. Each container was perforated with cutouts spelling the word “VOODOO,” which not only brands the structure but creates different vantage points and service area openings. And since the openings them self act as signage for the event, no additional materials or energy were needed to create banners or posters.

Markets

Empty shipping containers are commonly used as market stalls and warehouses in the countries of the former USSR.

The biggest shopping mall or organized market in Europe is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers, on 69 hectares (170.5 acre) of land, between the airport and the central part of Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. Informally named "Tolchok" and officially known as the Seventh-Kilometer Market

Seventh-Kilometer Market

The Seventh-Kilometer Market , informally known as Tolchok , is an outdoor market outside of Odessa, Ukraine...

it has 16,000 vendors and employs 1,200 security guards and maintenance workers.

In Central Asia, the Dordoy Bazaar

Dordoy Bazaar

Dordoy Bazaar is a large wholesale and retail market in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It is one of Asia's greatest public market places, comparable to Bangkok's Chatuchak weekend market or Tehran's Grand Bazaar...

in Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek , formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan.Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.The name is thought to...

, Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...

, almost entirely composed of double-stacked containers, is of comparable size. It is popular with travelers coming from Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

and Russia to take advantage of the cheap prices and plethora of knock-off designers.

In 2011 the Cashel Mall in Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

reopened in a series of shipping containers months after it had been destroyed in the February earthquake that devastated the city's central business district.

Other uses

Shipping containers have also been used as

Press Boxes
Emergency hurricane shelters for thoroughbred horses
Concession Stands
Fire Training Facility
Military Training Facility
Emergency shelter
Emergency shelter
Emergency shelters are places for people to live temporarily when they can't live in their previous residence, similar to homeless shelters. The main difference is that an emergency shelter typically specializes in people fleeing a specific type of situation, such as natural or man-made disasters,...

s
School buildings
Urban homes
Rural homes
Apartment and office buildings
Artists' studios
Stores
Moveable exhibition spaces on rails
Rail tracks
The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...
Telco hubs
Bank vault
Bank vault
A bank vault is a secure space where money, valuables, records, and documents can be stored. It is intended to protect their contents from theft, unauthorized use, fire, natural disasters, and other threats, just like a safe...

s
Medical clinics
Shipping container clinic
A shipping container clinic is a type of shipping container architecture using intermodal containers as the structural element of a medical clinic that can be easily deployed to remote regions of the world...
Radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

stations
Shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

s
Sleeping rooms
Recording Studios
Abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
Transportable factories
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
Modular data center
Modular data center
A modular data center system is a portable method of deploying data center capacity. An alternative to the traditional data center, a modular data center can be placed anywhere data capacity is needed....

s (e.g. Project Blackbox, Portable Modular Data Center
Portable Modular Data Center
The Portable Modular Data Center is a portable data center solution built into a standard 20, 40, or 53-foot intermodal container manufactured and marketed by IBM...

)
Experimental labs
Clandestine Cannabis gardens
Combatant Temporary Containment (ventilated)
Bathrooms
Showers
Workshops
Intermodal sealed storage on ships, trucks, and trains
House Foundations on unstable seismic zones
Elevator/stairwell shafts
Block roads and keep protesters away, as photo journalized during the Pakistan Long March
Pakistan Long March
In 2007, President Musharraf declared emergency rule in Pakistan and removed more than 60 judges from power. Musharraf's move was seen by many as an attempt to consolidate his hold on power after the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled that he was ineligible to hold the post of President.President...
Hotels
Construction trailers
Mine site accommodations
Exploration camp
VIP Lounge Viewing Deck

For housing and other architecture

Containers are in many ways an ideal building material because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. Architect

Architect

s as well as laypeople

Layman

A layperson or layman is a person who is not an expert in a given field of knowledge. The term originally meant a member of the laity, i.e. a non-clergymen, but over the centuries shifted in definition....

have used them to build many types of buildings such as homes, offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios and emergency shelters. They are also used to provide temporary secure spaces on construction sites and other venues on an "as is" basis instead of building shelters.

Phillip C. Clark filed for a United States patent on November 23, 1987 described as "Method for converting one or more steel shipping containers into a habitable building at a building site and the product thereof". This patent was granted August 8, 1989 as patent 4854094. The diagrams and information contained within the documentation of this patent appear to lay the groundwork for many current shipping container architectural ideas. Even so, this patent does not appear to have represented a novel invention at its time of filing (Paul Sawyers described extensive shipping container buildings that were used on the set of the 1985 movie Space Rage Breakout on Prison Planet).

During the 1991 Gulf War, containers saw considerable nonstandard uses not only as makeshift shelters but also for the transportation of Iraqi prisoners of war. Holes were cut in the containers to allow for ventilation and there were no reported ill effects from this method. Containers continue to be used for military shelters, often additionally fortified by adding sandbags to the side walls to protect against weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades ("RPGs").

The abundance and relative cheapness of these containers during the last decade comes from the deficit in manufactured goods coming from North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

in the last two decades. These manufactured goods come to North America from Asia and, to a lesser extent, Europe, in containers that often have to be shipped back empty, or "deadhead", at considerable expense. It is often cheaper to buy new containers in Asia than to ship old ones back. Therefore, new applications are sought for the used containers that have reached their North American destination.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.