Home Sweet Shipping Container: Detroit Housing Project

ABC News ^ | November 23, 2012 | Karin Halperin

[2ndDivisionVet]

The first U.S. multi-family condo built of used shipping containers is slated to break ground in Detroit early next year.

Strong, durable and portable, shipping containers stack easily and link together like Legos. About 25 million of these 20-by-40 feet multicolored boxes move through U.S. container ports a year, hauling children’s toys, flat-screen TVs, computers, car parts, sneakers and sweaters.

But so much travel takes its toll, and eventually the containers wear out and are retired. That’s when architects and designers, especially those with a “green” bent, step in to turn these cast-off boxes into student housing in Amsterdam, artists’ studios, emergency shelters, health clinics, office buildings.

Despite an oft-reported glut of unused cargo containers lying idle around U.S. ports and ship yards – estimates have ranged from 700,000 to 2 million – the Intermodal Steel Building Units and Container Homes Association puts the number closer to 12,000, including what’s sold on Craigslist and eBay.

HyBrid Architecture in Seattle, which has built cottages and office buildings from containers for close to a decade, coined the term “cargotecture” to describe this method of building. Co-founder Joel Egan warns that although containers can be bought for as little as $2,500, they shouldn’t be seen as a low-cost housing solution. “Ninety-five percent of the cost still remains,” he says.

Here’s a few recent North American projects – including the new condo project — where the shipping container takes center stage...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Obamavilles.

[cripplecreek]

Not a bad idea. If I could get away with it I'd consider something like this for a home add on. Sink some six by sixes in the ground and put a roofover and siding on them.

[GeronL]

bump

[tomkat]

A step up for many, no doubt.

long dare be a pug fo dat pasma anna shef fo da nikes yo !

[Bubba_Leroy]

They make decent storage buildings but I would not want to live in one.

[A_Former_Democrat]

And how long before Detroiters turn those into hellholes of crime, drugs, destruction, graffiti, whorehouses, and the like?

Not long.

[Bryanw92]

We use one as a storage building for my church. I’ve been thinking of buying one and hiding it on some land as “hunting cabin”.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Architects study latest in housing innovation originating in Appalachia . . . .

[2ndDivisionVet]

Don’t give them any ideas... LOL

[RightWingConspirator]

Not bullet-proof, but gives more protection than sheetrock alone. They’ll need that in Detroit.

[Bryanw92]

>>And how long before Detroiters turn those into hellholes of crime, drugs, destruction, graffiti, whorehouses, and the like?

The day they move in. Possibly sooner if the builders don’t put a fence around them during construction.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I have seen someone tale the jumbo sized ones and put three together and make a decent looking house.

[Secret Agent Man]

they’d be great underground bunkers.

[RedMDer]

Ideally, we need every member and regular user to contribute to keep Free Republic up and running strong.

[Hotmetal]

Two of my friends and I lived for a year in an eight by twenty in Afghanistan.

[taildragger]

Not as elaborate, but their was someone selling multi-units as one dwelling @ the Oshkosh airshow. They were rather neutral when I opined about their product in a Obama world...

[JRandomFreeper]

They aren't that bad, actually. Said the guy that lived in an 8'x12' tin-roofed shack in the mountains for over a year.

They are a a PITA to run 'lektrikity in, though, if you want it to look somewhat nice.

/johnny

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Before looking at the article, I expected this to be about the homeless living in abandoned shipping containers. No doubt if Romney had won, that’s what this would have been about. I guess with another four years of Obama, the MSM had to report “the brighter side” of living in shipping containers.

[Lancey Howard]

The first U.S. multi-family condo built of used shipping containers is slated to break ground in Detroit early next year.

LMBO!!

[2ndDivisionVet]