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."
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.