Shipping container modification and architecture as a new form of building residential, commercial, or industrial buildings using cargo shipping containers emerged around year 2005 against the background of wide spreading of the green living standards around the globe and urge for the cheaper and greener housing options. Thanks to the efforts of shipping container architecture pioneers, such as architects Adam Kalkin, Peter DeMaria, and Urban Space Management with their first Container City built in London, used shipping containers, previously doomed at slow decay in multiple sea docks around the globe, are now treated as the potential novel building material, gaining more and more public attention and interest.
Shipping Container Modifications
The container modifications we can handle include:
- acoustic enclosures and noise control solutions
- personal refuge
- storage containers
- workshops
- portable buildings
Container Home Architecture
Speaking about shipping container architecture, it is impossible not to mention and not to thank the person, who actually invented shipping containers back in 1956. Malcom McLean, an American businessman, is responsible for the so-called Shipping Container Revolution, when metal shipping containers replaced the previously used break bulk method of transporting cargo. McLean’s invention reduced the cost of loading cargo for 90% and also reduced ultimately the time and labor resources.
By the end of the second millennium the number of empty shipping containers stored in the docks (it is economically unprofitable to ship back the used containers to the country of origin) reached tremendous value, which attracted the attention of publicity and made people think about recycling of the shipping containers. That was the beginning of the shipping container architecture.
In year the 2006 the first official shipping container home was built by the Californian architect Peter DeMaria. His Redondo Beach House, built of eight used ISO containers received the AIA Honor in Excellence Award for Innovation in year 2007. Today, building with shipping containers is widely spread around the world with many projects completed in the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia.
The major features as well as the advantages of this type of building construction include strength, durability, easy transportation, low cost and availability at many locations. Shipping container architecture is valued by architects and home designers for its modular nature: all shipping containers have the same physical dimensions and can be easily placed on one another, thus creating unusual yet functional and attractive conventional architectural forms.
Today, examples of shipping container architecture include rural and urban dwellings, hospitals, schools, dormitories, office spaces, military and emergency facilities, artists’ studios and exhibitions, shopping malls, data centers, workshops, transportable factories, etc., and the number of completed projects continues to grow, fascinating us with the design, surprising with comfort, and inspiring with green living advantages.