Shelter

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Documenting a personal quest for non-toxic housing.

Superbox

As the advocates of the brief High Tech design movement of the 1980s -and the Eameses 40 years before them- well demonstrated, there is much practical potential in the creative reuse of industrial products in the application of housing. This was a natural area of exploration for me because industrial structures have always tended to be made with far more robust materials than is typical of housing and, as a result, make extensive use of non-toxic steel, aluminum, and concrete. And contemporary industry tends to generate a very steady stream of cast-offs with potental for reuse given a little ingenuity. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the ISO standard marine shipping container which, in communities where trade deficits are the norm, often accumulate in great numbers and thus have inspired much invention.

As a structural system, the shipping container has many virtues. Containers interlock using a variety of connectors which fit into their socketed corner blocks and allow them to be linked in three dimensions with stacks up to ten containers high. Containers are clear-span steel box frames at the 20' length size and are structurally sound with or without their wall and roof skins, thus allowing the sides of the box to be modified in any fashion without presenting any loss of structural integrity. The dimensions are a little odd in that non-parallel interconnections work only in combinations of 2:5 for 20' containers or 1:5 for 40' ones. In other words, if you want to rigidly connect containers side-to-end one must have five ends side-by-side to connect to one 40' container or two 20' containers linked end-to-end. Many types of fixtures designed to plug-into the container corner blocks are commonly available. Clamps used to mount antennas for telecom shelters and access ladders can accommodate innumerable other attachments. Bulkhead king-pin blocks normally welded to ship deck plates to let them carry containers can be attached to a great variety of foundation systems. A variety of lift devices and dollies -some with integral motors- can be attached to the sides of containers to make them self-mobile.

 

Read more about shipping container housing plans on www.shipping-container-housing.com