permaculture

[yarrow@sfo.com]

At 9:07 AM -0400 9/26/07, KNat wrote:
> Anyone work with retrofitting homes. Especially mobile homes and trailers.
>
> Kathyann
> _____

Here's an idea. I've also heard of several 
architects doing "green" modular and trailer 
homes.



http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek07/0209/0209d_pw.cfm

        Design Students Get Boxed In
Class project proposes empty shipping containers as livable spaces

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

Summary: One person's empty shipping crate can be 
another person's design treasure. At Cañada 
College in Redwood City, south of San Francisco, 
interior design students have created concepts 
for disaster and homeless housing incorporating 
imported-goods shipping containers. An 11-week 
class project, led by design instructor Annie 
Cronin, yielded creative designs that arrange and 
stack the spacious metal containers into 
low-cost, temporary communities.

In their creative design drawings, Cañada College 
students showed how empty, boxy shipping 
containers of metal and fiberglass could be used 
to provide temporary housing. The durable, 
box-shaped units, which measure 8 by 20 feet in 
plan and average about 10 feet high, can be use 
singly or merged into multi-unit complexes.

Students showed how empty, boxy shipping 
containers of metal and fiberglass could be used 
to provide temporary housing

The students used room layouts and amenities 
found in typical homes in their unit designs, 
including beds, bathroom and kitchen fixtures, 
hardwood floors, countertops, tiles, and 
microwaves. A planned community unit design 
showcased a garden, play area, pet park, clinic, 
space for laptops, a social-services facility, 
and laundry room. One design opened up the units 
to the outside with patios for more living space, 
a loft area, and green rooftop, while another 
featured computerized sun-tracking solar panels. 
Recycled and environmentally friendly materials 
were part of the student designs and included 
bamboo flooring, countertops and tiles, non-toxic 
fabrics, and low VOC paints.

Creative design solution for disaster relief, homelessness
"For this class, the focus was an interior for 
disaster relief housing, but the designs also 
could be for homeless shelters, too," says 
Cronin. "The assignment was one floor plan, two 
elevations, and one perspective of their units. I 
stressed LEED® and ways to get sustainable 
materials for their designs from within a 
500-mile radius of the project, which included 
researching and specifying materials and 
finishes."

Cronin says goods in shipping containers arrive 
in port cities like San Francisco from places 
such as China, and then go back empty. Cronin 
thought the empty metal cubes could be put to 
better use. Her idea for the shipping container 
class project arose from the 100-year anniversary 
of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. "After the 
earthquake, 3,000 cottages were built in Golden 
Gate Park, and in three weeks they had 3,000 
people housed in them. At the anniversary event, 
there was a display of the old photographs, and 
on the opposing wall there were pictures of 
Hurricane Katrina showing that not much was done 
there. I thought that empty shipping containers 
could be a good class design project using a 
minimal amount of square footage and also be a 
creative design solution to disaster relief and 
homelessness, especially for areas like San 
Francisco and New Orleans with large ports.

Shipping containers arrive in port cities like 
San Francisco from places such as China, and then 
go back empty

"The empty containers could be purchased for 
$900; provide a roof, walls, and ceiling; and be 
used and accessed," Cronin explains. "The 
students showed how you would place them on a 
foundation, insulate them from the inside or 
outside, cut out openings for windows, and stack 
them on top of each other. The boxes are 
hurricane safe, up to 140 mph. There are 
architects now using the shipping containers for 
high-end construction."

Cronin believes that with so much pre-fabricated 
building, a container's rooms, ideally made from 
sustainable materials, could get "popped in" with 
kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms. The boxed 
units could be designed to include amenities like 
microwaves, skylights, and laptops.

Containing community
Cronin, who experienced her own major house fire, 
agrees with her students that shipping containers 
turned into a planned community could help 
displaced people put their lives back together 
through a sense of community. "[After the fire] 
we were able to rent a house in our neighborhood, 
and nearby there was a school and support system. 
My kids and I didn't need to be in a motel for 
seven months," she said.

Cañada College offers four different design 
classes for a green design certificate. Cronin 
said she was impressed with her student's 
creativity and sustainable awareness during the 
shipping container design project. "I was blown 
away."


Palo Alto Weekly

May 25, 2007
 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=5386
Real Estate - Friday, May 25, 2007

 Emergency, eco-friendly housing
Interior design students construct homes out of metal storage containers

by Justin Bull

Annie Cronin presented an unusual problem to her 
green design and sustainable concepts class at 
Canada College last semester: How can you turn an 
8- x 20-foot metal storage container into a 
comfortable, eco-friendly home?

Transforming storage containers into affordable 
housing units has become a recent trend among 
innovative architects. Cronin used the creative 
idea as her final class project last November, 
having her students design models that turned the 
containers into livable one-to-two-person homes.

"It would be very easy to put these together 
quickly in case of a disaster," Cronin said of 
the practicality of the project.

The shipping containers exhibit several 
attractive, homey qualities, according to a 
Canada College press release. They are readily 
available, empty and can be purchased for about 
$900. They are also strong enough to withstand 
winds of up to 170 miles per hour.

Because the class was a "green" design course, 
Cronin encouraged her interior-design students to 
use every eco-friendly idea possible to create a 
livable space out of the used metal crates, and 
she was pleasantly surprised with the results.

"They did some great stuff," she said.

Student ideas included energy-efficient heating 
systems, skylights and multiple-floor homes with 
roof gardens, she said. One student developed a 
complex solar-power system that made the 
container self-sufficient.

"I was really surprised," Cronin said. "This 
particular project brought out a lot more 
creativity than other ones."

One of the most eco-friendly plans involved 
radiant floor heating, Cronin said. A 
radiant-floor heating design runs plastic tubing 
under the shipping container and heats water that 
passes through the pipes. It's a heating process 
that's much more efficient than venting in 
gas-heated air, Cronin said.

The idea for the project was born after Cronin 
witnessed the poorly planned response to 
Hurricane Katrina, as well as a recent display of 
the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake in 
1906. After the quake, thousands of temporary 
housing units were built in only three weeks, she 
said.

"I wanted to have students do a project in 
response to something that was done better than 
Hurricane Katrina. So many people were homeless 
and devastated and getting shipped all over the 
country because there was nothing for them," she 
said.

Those who participated reacted positively to the 
project, including Kit Golson, an interior 
designer with Redwood City-based Catherine 
Cunningham Interior Design, who is working on a 
certificate in green design.

"I enjoyed it tremendously," Golson said of the 
project. "I thought it was really interesting."

Her project consisted of an entire community of 
shipping container homes that would preserve the 
social setting of a neighborhood. She added 
high-transom windows and ecologically friendly 
linoleum flooring to the shipping containers, and 
the surrounding community included a dog park, a 
medical clinic and support services.

In Golson's units, she chose to minimize the 
kitchen and have no laundry, while emphasizing 
use of a community kitchen and clothesline. "This 
is to encourage community participation and to 
have less environmental impact. I suggested the 
funds be diverted to a laptop for each shelter to 
stay in touch with the larger world, to manage 
finances/job issues, and for retraining if 
needed," she added.

"I tried to put myself in the position of someone 
surviving Katrina," she said. "If communities 
like these could have been put up it would have 
kept each community together more."

Although shipping containers wouldn't necessarily 
make ideal homes, if modified they could be 
welcome shelters for those with few alternatives, 
Golson said.

"It seems like the government should take a good 
look at these," she said. "It would be an 
excellent way to reuse substantive material, 
instead of letting them pile up and erode."

Cronin added that while her project used the 
containers only as temporary homes, people out 
there are turning them into permanent housing 
structures.

Cronin hopes that disaster responses become more 
efficient and that environmental consciousness 
continues to grow.

"The more press something like this gets -- in 
terms of getting people to pay attention to their 
environment -- the better," she said.