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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Perfect solution!
People are playing with these everywhere as green housing parts.
Now the other very important attribute is that they are probably quite hurricane proof too.
The ANU in Canberra is just finishing a student housing project to relieve student housing shortage. It is entirely constructed of shipping containers.
Details here : http://accom.anu.edu.au/UAS/43.html
Just ask the prisoners at GTMO!! Shipping containers can be very cosy with a little welding!!
Bill Marsh (09:09:34) : “Aren’t those things going to get a tad warm in the tropical sun??”
Add a layer of wood, palm fronds, or a thin plywood sheet about 3 inches above the roof, with space for airflow.
JoePapp (09:21:07) : “Aside from being thrown to the floor, there is NO other damage which will happen to the occupants. (Actually they will probably lay on the floor as soon as the structure begins to shake…”
Maybe pregnancy. Or did you mean “lie on the floor?”
Regarding the economics of shipping back vs. selling. Another factor is that after ten trips (and loads/unloads) a container gets a bit banged up both inside and out. Even a slight bend could make it hard to stack it; even a small split in a seam could admit sea-water or salt air; even a few scratches could start some rust; and even a roughed-up inside could injure a warehouseman.
So maybe the insurance companies insist on containers being perfect. So the cost of required repairs could be uneconomic.
What nutcase is paying for someone to study something that has been common knowledge and practice in large parts of the world for many, many years.
Don’t these people have anything useful to do? If any money, time and effort is spent on this it is wasted. There are a large number of companies already specialising in doing this and I would be very surprised if a bunch of academics and students can come up with something better in any timeframe to to be of use. What is needed is money to do it and the will to do it. The expertise is readily available – tell these nuts to try looking at the internet
I think using old shipping containers for more permanent housing is a great idea. I just don’t think they’re practical for temporary emergency housing. They could be used to ship other housing kits then setup for other uses like clinics and such. That way, a lot more shelters could be delivered faster and more economically.
Right now the people of Haiti need water, food, medical supplies and more doctors.
The humanure subject may be a bit OT, but I also think it’s a good solution when infrastructure is wrecked like it is in Haiti.
No worries mate. Those diseases are exactly why humanure composting is the best solution for resource limited areas or when infrastructure is destroyed. Human pathogens like cholera are mostly spread through contact with water contaminated by human waste. That will be a huge problem in Haiti very soon, like now. Keeping the waste out of the water is the priority. A proper setup, and management of a pile, which is super easy, will produce temperatures, due to naturally occurring thermophilic bacteria, well above that required to kill all human pathogens in just a few days. I was a certified manager of a standard sewage treatment plant for a small community for a couple of years and I’ve also managed humanure systems so I’m not just guessing here. Standard sewage treatment is very expensive, from the cost of infrastructure and the plant, to ongoing maintenance and daily operations plus they require a lot of energy for aeration pumps and such. Humanure is cheap and easy plus it would provide free fertilizer for local agriculture and greatly limit the risk of contaminated water supplies thereby reducing, or even eliminating those persistent water borne diseases due to lack of proper treatment. Population density issues can be easily managed with a little planning and organization.
peace,
Tim
They work very well, but paint them white for the tropics and add a verandah and pairs of french doors for light and ventilation.
http://jetsongreen.typepad.com/jetson_green/images/2007/08/31/ibhopening5312007.jpg
The UN has been using these containers as a security perimeter around their compound just outside the Port au Prince airport for years – staked 2-3 high in some places. The earthquake shook the top ones off, so stacking them without highly-reinforced joins would be a non-starter. I’m not sure what rust problems they had, if any. I think the real problems that would be encountered would be related to locating them in Haiti. The containers would have to sit at ground level, which means they would be subject to flooding from all of the hurricanes – unless they were placed on hillsides, which would then make them likely to slide down the hills due to the lack of vegetation holding the soil in place (same problem with the shanty towns). They would need to be anchored to the ground somehow if they were placed on hills – which would be technologically challenging in Haiti, as well as likely driving the costs up. Siting is not a problem that couldn’t be solved, but it would take some land/water/vegetation management planning, and more than just the cost of buying the containers. That’s my take on it, for what it’s worth.
In the middle of the CBD in Melbourne (Australia) there’s a vacant lot down a back lane where for some reason a couple of shipping containers were left, and some visionary genius converted one into a bar and the other into the toilet facilities for the bar, slung a tarpaulin between the two to give the customers some shelter, and now has one of the hippest nightspots in town. Eeven if the Haitians don’t use them as houses they can start getting some partying happening again.
Containers could be used in Haiti as temp. polling offices so the locals could vote on whether to join the US or not. After 200+ years of dire history I think most would leap at the chance of joining civilisation – law and order imported in a box as it were. Puerto Rico shoud be give full status too.
Bob Villa visited a company in Florida several years ago. Their product was houses made of cargo containers. They easily cut window and door openings with a plasma torch. The sprayed the interiors with an insulating epoxy paint. The structures can be multi-story and even in the worst of storms, the structure would survive, even if the contents, doors and windows were destroyed.
If grids of small holes are cut for the windows, they would be more secure and can get by without glass windows, until later. The double doors at the end of the container can be permanently locked and hinges added to a cut-out person-sized door (use the cut-out piece as the door.)
Great idea – there are piles of empty containers in every port. Fill ’em with supplies and deliver them to the disaster zone. Empty them, then use them for houses.
Considering the global economy, there are probably idled cargo ships on-hand too.
A Vanderbilt architecture student was presenting this same idea at a global development conference at Stanford in 1988. My comment then was, “It will make a great solar oven.” Now, I agree there are some simple workarounds for that problem and an ISO container would make a great secure core structure for a house. There are some other potential pitfalls, but in a crisis, it may at least be worth trying. I would recommend using the shorter containers, especially in the hillside slums. They would fit the property footprint better.
There is a strong market for used and refurbished ISO containers, so I don’t know if they have much of a price advantage anymore.
I remember seeing fotos of stacked concrete culverts being used as emergency housing for refugees in India from, then, East Pakistan. I suppose that any roof is better than no roof.
Depositing waste in water is NOT “the dumbest idea ever.” It’s saved the modern world from the scourge of serious epidemic disease for the past 100 plus years. I freely admit my bias; I was an attorney for a water/wastewater utility for 26 years. Wastewater technology in the developed world has greatly improved over the years and it will continue to improve.
That being said, the idea of an incinerating toilet for use in connection with container housing in Haiti is a good one; and if conditions were right, there is nothing wrong with a “humanure” project as a temporary stopgap measure if it is properly and carefully done by experienced persons. But I would not use “humanure” composting on a mass scale basis. I simply think there is too much of a possibility for unintentionally spreading disease. People also don’t really want to notice their where their waste goes, it doesn’t matter whether the compost box has no odor or not.
They are talking of building some new prisons over here (New Zealand) out of shipping containers. NZ is one of the more geologically active countries so they must be able to handle a shake or two!
As an aside I still don’t get why the houses in Haiti seem to be built out of concrete – wood is used here for the reason that it flexes and so a good sized quake does little damage. Even the masonry houses have full wood framing.
Here’s a link to a book on the subject, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson
http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264081263&sr=1-1
I’ve seen that question asked quite a bit. Think about where Haiti is located.
Hurricanes. Haiti faces an annual threat of hurricanes, the last to blow through was in 2008. They only experience earthquakes every century of two.
I lived on St. Thomas, V.I. for a while and pretty much all of the buildings there are made of concrete as well. Wood, stick frame structures don’t last long in the Caribbean because of the frequency of hurricanes. They are using appropriate materials for their region. The problem in Haiti is poor quality as a result of inadequate building codes and poverty. I remember hearing a witness describe a “jumping”, that this quake produced an initial vertical displacement of the ground before the side to side shaking. That kind of quake is devastating to well made structures too because of the increased structural loading. Even a small quake of that nature can do a lot of damage, which happened in California several years ago.
peace,
Tim
…I think the NGO’s prefer tents in the shorterm, quicker and cheaper. Containers are a good medium/maybe long term proposition…isn’t it just called ‘affordable housing’…?
Anyway….it will never drive, can you imagine the howls of outrage from the NYT when its suggested that Haitians live in our old containers? Some people would rather other people die of exposure than allow such political incorrectness?
One of the major reasons for using concrete and masonry construction is security. It seems counter intuitive to build homes in the tropics with concrete or masonry walls, few and small windows and a metal roof (a more efficient solar oven than an ISO container), but it is the most effective way to protect one’s family and property. Security is one of the major benefits of using ISO containers, as long as there are not too many openings cut into them.
Haiti has endured 200 years of dire history at the hands of western imperial powers, the US being among the worst. They have been punished in a number of ways ever since they fought for their freedom in the slave revolt against Napoleon’s France. Even thought they won their freedom, they were still punished with “reparations”. The brutal Duvalier dictatorships, that lasted for decades, were fully sponsored and supported by the US. After the earthquake, the US military brought soldiers and guns, instead of doctors and supplies. Reports of violence and looting in the MSM are fabrications, based on independent eyewitnesses in PauP. The US military is actually thwarting relief efforts in Haiti. The Haitian people are proud and resilient and they are not about to become an official puppet state of the US, because their dictatorial governments have already been defacto US puppets for a long time. Do you forget that the US ousted Aristide not long ago? I think the Haitian people have had enough of the US brand of “law and order”.
@Larry
I’ve managed both a standard treatment plant and humanure systems plus I understand the biology quite well. Based on my experiences and knowledge it’s my conclusion that pooping in perfectly good water is a really bad idea for a number of reasons. Are you even aware of how much untreated wastewater by-passes treatment plants on a regular basis? I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the need for legal defense of the utility involved by-pass, or other contamination issues.
peace,
Tim
I think its a bit disingenuous to compare US political motivation during the cold war to todays situation. The US made very strange bedfellows back then, but that is, in hindsight, understandable having lived through the repeated attempts of Soviet expansion in the area, Cuba being the obvious one.
A friend works for Oxfam, I know that they hate being told what to do and when by the military, its almost inbred in the NGOs, therefore the US is on a hiding to nothing, everything will be the US militarys fault. Same thing happened in the Tsunami..while the US got stuck in with ships and helicopters, the aid agencies moaned about military involvement. If it was not impossible to ignore the plight of the people, the US would be in its rights to say ‘sort it out yourselves then if you don’t like us’ to all the ngos who know better. Meanwhile the EU is going to have another crisis meeting to discuss a rapid reaction humanitarian force…just like they did after the Tsunami.
And then they will just sit on thier hands again and just let the yanks do all the heavy lifting, again.
I could understand the anti-US side more if they got off their backsides and did something themselves, but that is not going to happen is it, when you can have the US for the whipping boy eh?
Re: Haiti re-Housing problem;
I have been watching with horror the millions of homeless Haitians from the quake. I have been trying to find a way to help. I believe I have found a way.
Please consider the following solution to some of the needs of the; Haitians, employing many out of work American construction people, all while helping green the environment.
Since losing my home building company of 20 years to the recession, I have been finishing the last ten years spent designing and developing an inexpensive way to address the low income senior housing problem.
This green, low environmental impact solution I have developed could be fast-tracked for a partial solution to the 2 million homeless earth quake victims in Haiti. The shelters can be produced from readily available materials and containers in the USA by American construction workers, all all which are all abundant. These dwellings could be produced quickly, economically, and would be shipped and unloaded, and delivered to site with existing technologies in place.
Once ruble is cleared, these structures could be easily tethered to existing foundations (in place) to be earthquake and hurricane resistant.
The homes could be expandable at a later date, adding more bedrooms, facilities, etc. Also, septic holding tanks and or water holding system, potable and for grey water uses, could be employed until infrastructure could be put into place to connect onto. Simple lighting, small refrigeration, radio, communication cells, and other needs could be powered by solar until more electrical infrastructure could be put into place. Then solar could be used as supplemental energy.
I have over twenty years of experience in construction of residential design, build and development. I would like to put these ideas and pre-developed designs into place, manufacturing these dwellings quickly for the victims.
Please have the proper person contact me to begin implementation of action.
Container home designs for Haitians, or anyone for that matter, will be forthcoming on my web site: 1jdj.com
Donations will be accepted to build, ship and install these homes as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Sincerely Yours,
Joel D. Jackson zenjdj@gmail.com 1jdj.com
I’ve been in shipping since the early seventies. [My parrot’s dead, and my beard is a pale grey]
There is at least one container-based building – owner occupier – in East London.
I believe there is also a student accommodation set, but I’ve not seen that myself.
The whole shipping industry is now deeper in the – ah – doo-doo than I can remember, and probably as bad as anything seen in shipping since the Thirties.
In a word – baaad.
We have hundreds of thousands of surplus containers, lots in the Caribbean, USA and Europe, and scores, probably hundreds of surplus ships to carry them.
{One problem
Even empty, even your local Strongmen’s club doesn’t lift even a twenty foot (= c. 6 metre) container.
What cranage facilities did Haiti have?
What cranage facilities does Haiti have?
What cranage facilities does Haiti have – today?)
Right.
If [and I do emphasise if] enough cranage, storage and transpportation is available in Haiti, and necessary ground can be cleared: –
For a few hundred thousand dollars in bunker fuels; pay for the seafarers [mostly third world citizens themselves] ;, & insurance – in case of accident and bunker spills, plus incidentals, like agency – I am sure ‘Shipping’ can get thousands of empty containers – or, if the cranage and distribution systems there can – indeed – cope, containers with ‘Shelterboxes’ |visit http://shelterbox.org/ ; look, see, maybe donate . . .| – into Haiti within weeks.
With the surplus in the system at present, that should not be a problem at all.
Some containers – if suitable cranage faclities exist – could carry old plant vehicles, etc; shelter/groundsheets; welding/burnng kit, and so on. This needs to be paid for/donated.
Gas for welding/burning, gas axes and so on, might well need deck stowage, or even separate carriage.
Possibly, if the ships are old – reaching the end of their [2010, not 2007] economic lives- Haiti could set up a thriving ship scrapping industry, too, exporting – or processing – the scrap.
Another requirement for gas axes, and their gases.
If any nasty substances are on board – boiler chemicals, bunkers, and asbestos all spring to mind – a suitable disposal contractor should be consulted [my brother-in-law runs one in the UK, for example, see http://www.wastesafe.net/%5D or the UK has NCEC – http://the-ncec.com/ – the National Chemical Emergency Centre, who could be contacted for help – from the UK, I suppose.
There is an old axiom in emergency management;
“Earth quakes don’t kill people, collapsing buildings do!”.
The problem in Haiti, and some other major earth quakes is use of poorly reinforced or designed concrete structures in areas that have no building codes or corrupt construction companies that ignore proper building techniques to cut corners.
The shipping containers have lots of possibilities which are obvious from all the comments above. Like mobile homes they would need to be tied down to prevent problems in hurricane winds but once anchored they would be just about indestructible for use as small unit housing. You could increase your your effective floor space by 50%, by positioning 2 containers side by side with an open area in between, then just adding a simple roof and two small end walls. In a tropical environment this open shade area could be left unenclosed most of the year, with simple awnings stretched between the containers.
The flying roof heat shade has been used in tropical areas for a very long time. I saw the technique used in Guam in the 1970’s as the Sea Bees would space a sheet of corrugated roofing tin, 2-3 inches above the structural roof to provide flow through ventilation from eve to ridge of the gable due to natural convection. it greatly reduced air conditioning demands. They also constructed simple canvas awnings on the home ported ships to shield the metal bulkheads from the tropical sun, creating outdoor patio like environments under the awnings.
The same could be done in Haiti. The people who died were mostly in the “upscale” areas, that had concrete structures that were not properly reinforced. The really poor in the shanty towns had much lower casualty rates, as the light weight wood and scrap construction was much more tolerant of ground motion. Even if it did fall the crushing injuries were much less than you see with masonry, concrete or block construction.
Larry
“They have also been used in other countries as emergency shelters in the case of earthquakes”.
In fact, thanks to our previous governements, in Sicily (after the 1968 Belice’s valley earthquake) and in central Italy (after the 1980 Irpinia earthquake), thousands of people were forced to live in a container for many years (!), waiting for a new house.