Cargotecture - A World of Possiblity in a Metal Box
Our country imports more than it exports. One byproduct of this recent development is the metal mountains of empty shipping containers piling up at our shipping ports and transport centers. What to do with them all?
Groups of innovative architects have an answer.
How about a house? An artist studio? A weekend get away spot? A clinic in a remote area? Relief housing after a natural disaster? HyBrid Architecture of Seattle and other companies like them around the world are experimenting with building prefab, ecologically intelligent structures from empty cargo containers.
A 40 foot container costs from $500 to $2000 plus a shipping fee to your building sight. That's kind of amusing...a shipping fee for your shipping container, but anyway. A company like HyBrid will outfit the container with window, insulation, and all the desired ammenities from upscale to utilitarian.
The containers as housing are interesting eye candy to some and hideous eye sores to others but our concept of the world is changing. It's time to utilize the junk we've created and reconfigure the way we think about our right to a disposable lifestyle. If not for a house, the containers make perfect low cost structures for clinics in remote or impoverished areas. A building such as this might mean the difference in a non-profit having the money to start medical services or not. Facility expenses can be a huge burden when calculating the money needed to get a project off the ground.
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