When is a cargo container not a cargo container? When it’s a house!

By William Atkins
Friday, 07 November 2008 22:48

Science - Energy

The FabPreFab.com website “ContainerBay” contains an alphabetized listing of these cargo container builders around the world.

The website states, “There is growing interest in the use of shipping containers as the basis for habitable structures. These "icons of globalization" are relatively inexpensive, structurally sound and in abundant supply."

It adds, "Although, in raw form, containers are dark windowless boxes (which might place them at odds with some of the tenets of modernist design...) they can be highly customizable modular elements of a larger structure.”

Peter DeMaria is interviewed about cargo container homes on the video website, “DeMaria Talks About Cargo Container Design and Sustainability.”

The website of U.S. home improvement TV show host Bob Vila talks about container homes in the article “Converting Shipping Containers for Housing” also talks about this housing alternative."

The article states, “Containers make structural sense. They are manufactured with heavy-gauge Corten steel to make them strong and fairly impervious to the elements."

It adds, "They are ideal building blocks and can be stacked up to nine rows high without compromising their structural integrity.”