This latest container home is designed by Christopher Robertson and built by Numan Construction and is a 1,858 square-foot home with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. In addition to many green features, apparently the construction waste was able to be contained within ten contractor trash bags.

Here are some of the green features:

• FilterPave driveway using 70-80 percent post-consumer recycled glass, 20-30 percent granite, and a polymer binder in a four inch layer.
• Built with three used shipping containers
• SIPs incorporated in roof and floors
• On-demand hot water heater
• Efficient Unico AC system
• An energy recovery ventilation system
• Bamboo flooring and low-VOC paints
• Use of fiberboard products
• Energy efficient appliances
• Dual-flush toilets and efficient plumbing/fixtures

The function of this 2 x 20′ unit container home is to provide housing for low income families in remote parts of the world. With minimal foundation expense, you can mount the Modulite onto sono-tube concrete piers and be up and running in a matter of days.

concept & design by Keith Dewey (zigloo.ca) & Craig Arnatt

Marti’s container home is coming along nicely. Her house now has radiant tubing in place and all the structural containers and openings are done. This is great to see one’s dreams come to reality and we wish the crew all the best and continued success in completing this container home. You can track her progress here.

We just finished displaying our Zerocabin bunkhouse model at Round Up 2009.  The Mining Expo was held at the Bayshore Inn, Vancouver, wrapping up earlier tonight Jan 30th, 2009

Download our 8 Man Bunkhouse PDF brochure.

Shipping container buildings have gained incredible popularity over the last year. And now here is another one to add to the list - the 2+ Weekend House by Jure Kotnik Arhitekt. This mini housing unit is constructed from two stacked containers, and can be shaped according to its owner’s particular needs using the ConHouse System. The difference between this prefab house and the rest of the houses we’ve seen is that this house is made from containers specifically manufactured to housing units, and not recycled shipping containers.

Shipping containers have become a popular choice for prefab construction due to their structural stability and ability to provide a quick frame for a building– not to mention the excess supply of them in shipping yards around the country. The designers using them are taking a wasted resource and upcycling them to give them a useful life as a home–which is also hopefully affordable. Putting it bluntly, the whole point of using shipping containers was to use up something that would end up wasted otherwise, not necessarily because everyone loved the look.

This design by Jure Kotnik, based in Slovenia, utilizes ConHouse container units, developed expressly for housing and office purposes. ConHouse asserts some of the typical characteristics that other prefabs claim - recyclability, adaptability, modular additions, and affordability, but do not push the envelope in sustainable design. Unfortunately, none of these features are innovative or new and the 2+ Weekend House doesn’t seem to encourage energy efficiency, renewable energy generation and there is no mention of healthy, non-toxic interiors.

Modular and affordable housing are certainly important and we look forward to seeing more attempts to create such customizable homes. The ConHouse system isn’t doing anyone favors though. They have merely capitalized on the popularity of the shipping container look, while attempting to offer more customization. Additionally, we worry for the family who has to reside in a home with garish pink polka-dots.

ecosistema urbano: Twenty-four shipping containers are retrofitted and transformed into PUMA CITY, a transportable retail and event building that is traveling around the world along with the 70-foot long Puma sailing boat – il Mostro - during the one-year long 2008 Volvo Ocean Race, just started in Alicante, Spain in early October. The building is fully dismountable and travels on a cargo ship along with the sail boats; it will be assembled and disassembled a number of times once it reaches the different international harbors.

Treehugger: Puma City is a truly experimental building that takes full advantage of the global shipping network already in place. At 11,000 square feet of space, it is the first container building of its scale to be truly mobile, designed to respond to all of the architectural challenges of a building of its kind, including international building code, dramatic climate changes, plug-in electrical and HVAC systems and ease of assembly and operations.

VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA
SATURDAY, NOV 15th, 2008

The design proposal features 7, 20 foot containers with a great room facing the ocean,
two lofts above for the kids and a master bedroom facing the back of the property.

Out the master bedroom deck is a hot tub which is standing on a piling with a fireplace \
at the ground level so the water can be heated naturally by firewood. A circulating pump keeps things cozy.

Eighty-six shipping containers make up the new Travelodge Hotel in Uxbridge, England.

Most people would not consider a shipping container to be a comfortable place to spend the night, but a new Travelodge hotel in England thinks it has found a way to make it appealing.

Located in a suburb of London called Uxbridge, the new hotel contains 120 rooms and was constructed in about four months on site, said Greg Dawson, a spokesman for Travelodge. That time included laying the foundations for the building. If constructed using traditional methods, the entire project would have taken about 15 months to two years to complete, he said. The hotel opened on August 15.

The modified steel shipping containers were fitted with hotel fixtures in Shenzen, China and then transported to England by boat, Travelodge said in a statement. The 86 individual containers then were stacked together “like giant Lego blocks” on the actual site in about 20 days.

The shipping containers were fitted with fixtures in China before being sent to England.

The building method is very efficient and makes it possible to build in tricky locations, Dawson said. He noted that the location of the Uxbridge hotel at a former bus station in a busy shopping district probably could not have supported traditional building methods because of limited access.

The building style is also cheaper than traditional methods, Dawson said. The rates at the hotel currently match those at conventionally-built ones. But Dawson said the savings from the lower building costs get passed on to the consumer because they will allow the company to keep prices at the same rate even as utility prices and other costs continue to rise. The rooms at the hotel are about £20 (about $37) if booked online and £40-50 (about $73-$92) for walk-in guests, Dawson said.

Verbus Systems, a U.K. contractor, approached Travelodge with the idea, Dawson said. The hotel company currently has plans to open a new hotel in the U.K. every week for the next ten years, Dawson said, and the shipping container building method that Verbus proposed would help the company keep up with its target rate of growth. Travelodge has opened about 100 hotels in the last four years.

Travelodge is exploring the idea of building more shipping container hotels in the U.K. A similar project of 310 rooms is already under construction near Heathrow airport and will likely open in December, Dawson said.

Readers, what do you think of this building method?

read here: http://weburbanist.com/2008/05/26/cargo-container-homes-and-offices/

How about a cliff top container house?