I realize this is a bit OT of my normal fare here, but I thought it was interesting. Apparently island nations tend to have a surplus of these (more imports than export), and compared to some of the structures there, these might well be superior strength housing. If they put in some French doors, it will really “open them up”.
Clemson faculty explore how to convert shipping containers into emergency housing
CLEMSON, S.C. — Resources to solve the housing crisis in Haiti may already be on hand.
Some Clemson University researchers have been experimenting with ways to convert shipping containers into emergency housing in the hurricane-prone Caribbean, where a surplus of the sturdy boxes often sits in port yards.
Pernille Christensen, a research associate in the Richard H. Pennell Center for Real Estate and Ph.D. student in planning, design and the built environment; associate professor Doug Hecker; and assistant professor Martha Skinner of Clemson’s School of Architecture, collaborated on the SEED Project, working to develop a method to convert the shipping containers into homes.
The original idea was inspired by housing crises that have followed large hurricanes in the Caribbean and United States. However, Hecker said shipping containers would meet those needs in an earthquake zone, too.
“Because of the shipping container’s ‘unibody’ construction they are also very good in seismic zones and exceed structural code in the United States and any country in the world,” Hecker said. “They have also been used in other countries as emergency shelters in the case of earthquakes. As the SEED Project develops this will certainly be an area that we incorporate. With a few simple cuts at the port, a storage container can be turned into something that is livable and opens to the site.”
Faculty and students sought a way to put displaced people in emergency housing that could be sturdy and safe on a permanent site. Putting families back on their own land quickly is key to the idea. Families displaced by disaster often do not return to their permanent homes for years, if ever, but the Clemson researchers are looking for strategies to implement the SEED Project as quickly as possible, ideally having a modified container on site within three weeks.
“You get people back in their communities and it strengthens those communities,” Christensen said. “They work on their home, not a temporary shelter, and then they work with their neighbors to rebuild the neighborhood. It leads to a healthier and safer community. And these are places often in dire need of better housing.”
Many Caribbean countries import more containers than they export, which leads to the surplus of containers in those nations.
“The project has a double mission: to address the local need of providing adequate housing for people in need while solving a global problem of recycling – giving purpose to empty containers that would otherwise be discarded,” Skinner said.
As part of this research, the group is studying the cycles of natural disasters by looking at the larger picture through mapping and logistics to understand how containers move, available surpluses and ultimately coordinating the cycles of natural disasters with the ebb and flow of container supplies worldwide.
The SEED Project also includes plans for using another surplus item, 55-gallon steel drums, as a way to create a starter garden – from seed – on the roof of the container homes as a way to get food crops started when the ground may be contaminated by stormwater. Water also would be filtered through the drums before being used in a water pod comprised of shower, sink and composting toilet.
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The Maersk Emma brings 10,000+ of these containers to the U.S. every month, from China, mostly for Wal-Mart. They generally don’t go back. And that’s just one ship. So there are a whole lot of them around.
Fill ’em with relief supplies, Haiti will need tons for a long time, and convert them after they are empty. They don’t need to be fancy, people with nothing will be better off with any simple housing.
Reinforce or rebuild them later, but deal with the immediate problem.
The Yellow Pages of ports (especially on the west coast, where there is a glut) have ads from resellers who have lots of them cheap—I seem to remember being quoted a price of $2000. (Or one could rent one.) I’ve seen them offered on eBay for $950, in good condition. And a search of Google for “‘shipping containers’ for sale” brings up 20,000 hits, plus some sponsored links. Most sellers would rather sell their new items; and the stock of used items is presumably unpredictable.
Once it has served its purpose, it could be sold back to the seller. (At least one seller has told me he’d buy one back, at a lower price of course.)
A used container would make a neat rural outbuilding, or could serve as a spare room (rec room or library, etc.) or storage area. They’d also be fire-resistant–at least against external fires. So maybe they’d be good in wildfire-prone areas like So. Cal.–if the building-code people would go along. (Highly unlikely.) But still, they would be good as fire-resistant outbuildings.
Also, In a flood-prone area, such rooms and outbuildings could be moved to higher ground if rising waters threatened them–a good reason perhaps to construct an entire bottom-land homestead out of such containers, arranged in a spoke pattern around a central kitchen/bathroom hub.
Regarding stackability: The containers are designed to be stacked on top of each other several layers deep, on ships, and not to slide around when the ship rolls. There’s a group in Berkeley that has stacked them three or four deep. So they must have some bumps and grooves that nest together. Probably loops could be welded to them that could allow them to be bolted together, if necessary.
There was a story in the NYT (I think) about how these used containers were being fairly widely used in some places in Africa for housing. I think they use a shade over the top for heat-protection.
@ur momisugly DirkH (10:44:25) :
Economics can make it more worthwhile to abandon a shipping container than to recover it.
Let’s say a used container is valued at $1000. It is used on a shipping route where more containers are going to a destination than are being shipped out. It costs $100 to ship it back empty. After ten empty return trips, you have spent as much to recover the container as it is worth. For the 11th trip, you would have to justify to the accountants why you are willing to spend $1100 total to retrieve a $1000 box.
Depending on how the accounting is actually done, continually shipping back empty can be justified. You can figure on a certain percentage of return trips being empty, and increase your rates to the destination to cover the amount. However for bookkeeping purposes they may be better considered as long-term consumable items rather than one-time investments, good only for a certain number of trips. Then they become an expense of doing business, deducted from income before taxes. They can be subject to depreciation, and at some point their value is less than the return shipping.
Then there may be countries that are perpetually net exporters, like China, where it may be figured that they can more cheaply make new containers to ship their products than to gather used ones. A “one use” model would seem profitable, use the container to ship products, then sell the container after unloading.
here’s a fully air-conditioned recording studio built in two containers. 🙂
http://www.johnlsayers.com/Studio/Mainpage/MP-Mark.htm
Dozens used 10km from here as semi-permanent cabins (air conditioned) in construction and mining camps and caravan (trailer) parks. There was a news story a year or 2 ago about a woman and 3 kids being charged an exorbitant rent for one but they’re still there. And here it’s tropical, hot, salty, we get cyclones…
Notice all the feel good future thought – why not just start a fund to convert the containers today?
There are unused containers in Haiti, there are lots of unused containers in the US. Let’s fix the cranes in the Harbor, and start the reconstruction. I suspect innovative Haitians will also figure out a way to use the metal cutouts as furniture. They’re not stupid, just poor.
In a functional world, some of the billions spent on climate modeling to prevent a potential, future problem, would be spent on a real, current problem.
This is a clever idea with lots of potential. Only problem is, lack of funds.
I have an idea. Let’s take some of the money being spent on climate modeling, say 10%, and spend it on real problem solving.
This is not the first time victims of a real disaster have needed housing in a hurry. Couldn’t we get a team of people, all linked via the web, working on solutions to this single problem? Once something is developed, fund some jobs intended to manufacture the developed solution. Store the resulting housing somewhere, or better yet, ship the housing to places yet to recover from past disasters.
We would be left with about 22 climate models, but we can’t seem to pick the one capable of actually modeling the atmosphere, so who would notice?
A good idea.
5.9 aftershock reported, originally thought to be 6.1 but recalculated.
And what has happened in the Dominican Republic, which shares the same island with Haiti? Besides becoming an airplane parking lot while people and supplies are rushed overland. Didn’t this earthquake affect them at all?
A young australian inventor came up with an extremely low cost framing system to reinforce simple masonry/mud brick structures to make them earthquake resistant. The earthquake still ruins the structure, but the people inside don’t die as it holds structural integrity. Projects like this are around and available at a cost even the worlds poor can accomodate, especially with some aid money. If only the words attention didn’t have to wait until there was bodies in the street before deciding something needed to be done.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1699340.htm
This has been in vogue for about a decade in the architecture community. Personally, as an architect too, I am not a big fan. Shipping containers are interesting to many because their dimensions are quite human scaled, have an integral structural quality, and are readily available, and look cool.
But
They are not good climate , in the HVAC sense, control. Because the interior surface is also the exterior surface any extreme, hot or cold, radiates to the inside. So if it is 100 degrees with the sun beating down on the steel roof and walls, the inside is 100+ and cooking those inside. Same is true for cold temps.
People have been using storage containers as building modules for years.
http://firmitas.org/
solrey (10:33:43) :
Humanure composting is a great solution in general, especially in areas where water is scarce or standard sewage treatment isn’t feasible
I lack direct experience with composting human waste. It strikes me as dangerous in a packed urban environment like Port Au Prince. Your friend probably didn’t have cholera, dysentery, or other diseases caused by a lack of hygiene. I am open to being convinced that it is safe. Please don’t take offense but I am not yet so convinced.
Not that strange, there is a company in my home town that converts shipping containers to accomodation. They put in doors and windows and a floor. My mother has one in her front yard as it was the cheapest way to have a spare bedroom. She lives in the tropics and since the container she bought had previously been used as a refrigeration unit, it is insulated and beautifully cool during the day even without an airconditioner (and they are very easy to aircondition). Kit homes, demountables and trailerhomes in Australia are prohibitively expensive, so many people do this here, especially for construction sites as accomodation or site offices.
This is a great idea. Here in Australia we have a similar thing, whereby shipping containers are converted and called dongas – they are basically shipping containers converted for use in the pilbara and mining areas. Only problem in tropical areas would be heat.
Go check this out if you want to see how high they can be stacked. In the same web-page you will see how well they are anchored on ships.
As for shade, a bunch of solar panels could be mounted on top or if you don’t need solar electricity, just put it under a tree.
forgot the link… http://robinstorm.blogspot.com/2007_07_16_archive.html
Good idea NOW, not after fiddling around as in the photo.
Perhaps a few basics like passive ventilation, and screening for the doors already on the ends. They need something NOW!
Hope no lightning strikes in low-lying Haiti!
About 20 years ago I worked for a company that was shipping large centrifuges to So. Korea. The specifications for the shipping containers were very exact and all first class exterior grade materials. It seems that the containers were being converted into housing in Korea.
Vietnam saw the use of “conex” containers as living spaces ,fighting positions (IMHO not so good) and shelters from stand-off atack (mortars, 122s etc). One of my sons is presently living in one in Iraq.
In such seismic area such style of housing can surely be more than temporary. They would need a coat of paint per year, nothing that anyone could do for their own homes. Let’s also put the UN bureaucracy in them too.
AJ (10:31:45) :
Whatever happened to the Katrina RV’s?
—
Dunno about Katrina’s, but here are a few from Ivan:
30°28’22.56″N – 87°19’58.46″W
Last time I drove by, they were still there.
I was on Bonaire last winter for a very brief vacation. The containers are used for workshops and officecs; why not temporary housing? Seems like a good idea to me
They have been used to build an extension to a jail here down under – must be good.