Technolust & Loathing

This was first posted on Jan 3, 2011 on a different, now discontinued blog.

It appears that Hollywood has picked up on the small living movement in the form of a shipping container home lived in by Sam Flynn in Tron Legacy.  The common area opens from both sides, one to the street and one to the harbor.  (His father, Kevin Flynn, also lives in a simple and small home that have modules).

Many sci-fi type movies have lead to trends in technology and everyday objects.  Perhaps the idea of using recycled materials will take off as much as developing new gadgets.  After all, the re-purpose shipping containers is not only good for the environment (it’s cheaper to leave them in stacks on empty land then to send them back to the country of origin), but they are structurally very strong and can support a wide variety of needs.

Interior of the house (looked for an exterior view, but had some trouble).

Authors Note:  Found an image! – Feb 3, 2011

As an update, I also saw on “pitbulls and Parolees” (from the Animal Planet) that the Villalobos Pitbull Rescue Ranch has used shipping containers to offer the dogs shelter in their new location in the mountains. In general they are trying to create a self-sustaining and green ranch. For more information about the organization, please see: http://www.vrcpitbull.com/home.htm

This was first posted on Jan 6, 2011 on a different, now discontinued blog.

There are a number on innovative ideas to integrate green solutions into everyday life.

In the journal “Communications of ACM” from Sept, 2010 (Vol 53, number 09), one city added censors to bicycles to determine the commute time, air quality, noise pollution, pot holes encountered, etc. (page 16)

At the UIST Symposium in Oct 2010, the artist keynote speaker was Natalie Jeremijenko.

Jeremijenko combines environmental design with creative thinking in order to help the public become interested in environmental issues.  She developed a number of interactive designs such as a robotic dog that can “smell” toxic substances.  Children become more engaged with the physical representation of the toxic detector and can better understand what the scientists are doing.  There are many schools built on or around superfund toxic sites, so such knowledge is important to communicate to the communities.  Also, such creative design as robotic sniffing dogs always get the local press out.

Other inventions:  1. Integrating plants into light fixtures to improve indoor air quality.  2. Created “no park” parks.  In the city where there are places like fire hydrants where no car is supposed to park, she has worked with the city to remove the asphalt and plant a little park to help with the filtration of city road water (removing the heavy metals you see as a rainbow in pools of street water).  Being a small patch of plants, if an emergency vehicle needed to park on it, it’s not a big deal.  3. A number of environmental building models assume that outdoor air quality is better than indoor, which is not true in all cities.  Therefore why not work on making indoor air quality better by including plants in the air circulation system to naturally clean the air?  4. She has added air filters that pull air from the street level (where cars blow out exhaust) and collect the carbon.  She then collects the air filters and makes pencils out of the lead and carbon showing a physical representation of how much pollution was taken out of the air.

As I find more creative solutions I will make sure to post them in the hopes to inspire you to develop your own projects.

This was first posted on Feb 7, 2011 on a different, now discontinued blog.

As a previous blog posting has attracted a number of people searching for more information about the Tron Legacy shipping container home, I thought it might be good to dedicate a post to this type of green building strategy.

Aren’t they hot and with poor ventilation?

In short, why would anyone want to live in a shipping container?  Let me give you a brief history of how they have been used and their benefits.

Shipping containers are the strongest boxes in the world.  They can stack 9 high, are weather-resistant, mold-resistent, virtually won’t rust, and are everywhere.  As products are made in other countries, they are shipped to the US in these steal containers.  Once here, it is less expensive to dump them then return the empty container to its country of origin.  Therefore, they are a waste by-product.

The containers were first used to create housing for rural and poverty laden locations.  Since about 2005, the use of containers has risen the Europe, Australia, China and the US.  From student housing to contemporary high-scale homes, containers have been manipulated to fit a variety of needs.

Due to the steal in the container, large windows can be easily supported, allowing for some very remarkable designs.  Insulation, plumbing, electric, lighting, etc. can easily be installed within the container, and many different containers of varying sizes can be put together to create your ideal living space.  In some cases containers are incorporated into regular house designs to allow for different shapes, other than the square look.  You may not even know that a shipping container was used in some of the more contemporary houses.

As far as building materials go, they are cheap.  Think of what it costs to purchase wood, steal beams, concrete, etc. to build just the structure of a house.  Now compare that to 1,200-6,000 per container used.

They are durable.  Shipping containers will far surpass any safety requirements required in an inspection, especially if the foundation is poured with the locking mechanism in place (how containers lock to each other when stacked).

Installation is quick.  Once the openings are cut out, and the foundation laid, the installation of the house’s framework is very quick.  Each section is brought in by truck, laid, and welded together (unless you think you will want to take the house with you if you move, but welding is recommended).  Lastly the roof is reinforced.  After that, it’s all interior work.

They do retain heat and some containers may have held less than environmentally friendly materials.  So make sure to speak with a professional about proper ventilation and that the containers history is either known or checked.

The trick is that some cities don’t know how to appraise shipping container homes, or some neighborhoods might not like the idea, so having examples of well put together homes can be helpful.

Tips

Keep in mind that if you want to go this route, there are many other green strategies to consider (like waste concerns for other aspects of your building project, green landscaping including a living room, and other sustainability practices).  Check out the USGBC website for more information about green practices in building.

Don’t take my word for this, do your research!

For a very brief overview on shipping container homes see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_container_architecture, but I would recommend finding blogs and books that people have written who have been through the process.