Shipping containers come in two main sizes – the 20 foot container (1 TEU) and the 40 foot container (2 TEU). A company in the US has just launched a 1 TEU shipping container home called the Vista C that is small enough to be sent almost anywhere in the world, yet has the facilities…
A family in the Caribbean island of Costa Rica had a bit of a problem – their three grown up boys were getting under their parents’ feet, needed more space, yet did not have the funds to build or buy their own homes. The solution? Three shipping container ‘cargotecture’ homes were built on the family’s…
A businessman has been given an award for the way he hid his shipping container storage unit in plain sight. No matter the wonders of shipping containers – they don’t fit just anywhere… They can sit very well in a post-industrial landscape full of old warehouses and port machinery. The quasi brutalist nature of the…
Let’s look at prisons made out of shipping containers. Those who live a crime free life, with their biggest rebellion having three glasses of wine over dinner instead of just one, may think that prisons should be hellholes for people to rot in. There’s a problem with that – people don’t reform in adverse situations….
A Greek company, working in conjunction with a natural fibre mattress manufacturer, has developed a 40ft shipping container home that is energy efficient. Cocoon has the container homes on sale for US$65,000 per unit, though if you wish to have more than one container in your block / blocks you should contact the company to discuss…
The thought of a shipping container classroom might make you think of something austere and industrial – perhaps something for a state school that’s really strapped for cash? The German International School Sydney (GISS) has developed teaching spaces that would make rival schools jealous. This is shipping container repurposing with real style. GISS background The GISS…
When you think of the idea of a ‘shipping container diving platform’ you could think of somewhere from which to scuba dive and to explore the depths… Or as somewhere to jump from. Tombstoning Let’s face it, give a kid a hot day and some water and they’re likely to swim in it to cool…
Could a shipping container mall revive the centre of Newcastle in England? Nearly every city in the world has a carbuncle of derelict land near their centres where antisocial behaviour reigns and the general population avoids. The hope is that by having bars, restaurants and boutique shops in a currently struggling part of the former…
After five years where containerships seemed to stabilise in size at a capacity of around 18,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in size, shipping companies are building bigger again. Now the biggest containership has a capacity of nearly 21,500 TEU. What’s the push behind building bigger? Economies of scale – the bigger the ships, the…
There’s a race on to power the transport of the future. Carbon isn’t even in the running. The two front runners are hydrogen and batteries as a method of storing electricity. In this piece we will look at a zero carbon emission hydrogen extraction and storage plant that sits in a shipping container, while reflecting…