Judging Home |
Contain Your Enthusiasm (#51) |
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| Type of building: | Residential |
Entry Description | |
| Used shipping containers are the refuse of modern, consumer society. About 50% are designed for a single use. The cost of their re-use being too high, they pile up at major shipping points and are left to rust. The problem grows as we consume more. Upcycling used containers is a highly “green” and responsible alternative. Three containers make a gracious 3-bedroom home of 1300 s.f. and 9’ ceilings. We’ve softened their industrial quality with simple wood trellis elements that provide shading. | |
| A discussion of design for adaptability and disassembly techniques incorporated: Shipping containers are, by their nature modular. They are designed to stack and lock into rows, and are meant, under ISO standards to carry more than 2 tons of internal load, stacked up to 8 high on board ship. In our design, unitized kitchens are installed prior to delivery. Foundation footings are extremely compact and affordable. The structure is raised to encourage natural air circulation, and the shipping containers are simply delivered and “dropped in place” on the footings. Every element of the design is meant to be demountable, including shading screens, and each container can be added or subtracted from the house to add bedrooms or living spaces. When a family moves, the containers can easily be demounted and carried on traditional tractor-trailer truck rigs fully fit out to the new location. If family composition changes, additional modules can be added on top, next to, or around the existing units by simply adding new piers at each corner and dropping a new container in place. Even when fit out, the containers can be handled on site using a standard forklift rather than heavy crane equipment, making alterations also quite economical. Designed for long term durability and minimal maintenance, containers are an ideal, affordable building material. Standard containers include a locking clamp designed to clip the units together, whether side-by-side or on top. The clamp is similarly ISO rated for weight and resistance. | |
| Environmental implications of entry: The reduction of shipping container blight through upcycling of used containers is an environmental and an economic boon. It will open huge tracts of underused land resources, currently wasted as dumping yards for used containers, it will make use of the resources themselves, and will remove a visual blight from the landscape. The added benefit of reduced building materials used for housing could dramatically impact the production housing industry, whether for large scale affordable solutions or for higher-priced market rate housing. The design of the container is adaptable to a modernist aesthetic, or can also be disguised behind stucco to appear as any other ordinary tract housing. A home made from them provides sturdy, inexpensive square footage. Each unit is brought onsite for about $2000, providing about $6.00 per s.f. “space value”, an amazing bargain. This may result in huge trade-offs of standard wood construction materials vs. what would otherwise have been rusting refuse | |
| Economic or policy implications of entry: The economy of upcycling is self-evident. The costs of dump-warehousing of used shipping containers is enormous, as well as creating visual blight in cities across the country. Not only will the re-use of these underutilized resources provide raw materials for buildings at incredibly low prices, but will reduce the need for large areas of land to store them. The redevelopable urban areas can turn to parkland or other more eco-friendly uses, and city governments will also benefit. Tax benefits from the reuse of these land tracts can also accrue to cities. Shipping companies will be able to reduce their costs and add income stream from the sale of these commodities, and builders will add an inexpensive construction resource to their arsenal. Low building costs will also allow the creation of low-cost housing for under-served populations and lower income brackets, or, if “dressed up” and treated in modernist vocabulary could flexibly target up-market buyers as well. | |
| Explain how the entry advances lifecycle building education: Our design includes several elements of sustainable building and lifecycle building practices that illustrate learning opportunities. Sun angles and natural daylighting/shading are illustrated through the use of horizontal louvered screens. A “living roof” of plant materials provides a cooling natural ecosystem on top of the building that provides an opportunity to understand native plant species and planting characteristics. The nature of upcycling itself is clearly understandable through the use of containers and the modular nature of containers also is clearly understandable in the “stacked” design that is employed. An optional photovoltaic array on the roof of the structure would also illustrate how housing can reverse carbon emmissions through contributions back to the power grid. | |
| Additional information: “Upcycling” being the re-use of otherwise wasted resources is a reversal of waste flow when containers are diverted. Additional values derive from making attractive housing more affordable than traditionally framed wood structures. Reduction of wood based housing, as well as gypsum interior sheathing, glass based insulation, and other “traditional” building materials provides overall economic and environmental benefits. Dollar figures for these values are hard to estimate, but every single element of this proposal reduces some element of the traditional construction waste and materials stream. Even the wood louvered sunshading is proposed with recycled timber. Insulation value is gained through ceramic sprayed coating. | |
Entry Metrics | |
| Estimated building square footage: 1350 square feet | |
| Tons of concrete reduced/conserved in your entry: 48 tons | |
| Explanation: The perimeter of the structure is 168’-9” long. Standard spread footings use approximately 4 cu. feet of concrete per lin.ft. 4 cu.ft.x169 l.f.=676 cu.ft. x 150 lbs/cu.ft (per Penn. St. Ref.) = 101,400 lbs. minus 8 piers as designed = 95,040 lbs. | |
| Tons of wood reduced/conserved in your entry: 8 | |
| Explanation: Reduced “stick” framing by 60%. Typically would represent entire structure. Normal walls/floors/roof assemblies calculated at Penn. St. Ref. (2x4 walls and 2x10 flrs/roof) walls @ 8.64 #/lf. studs @ 16"o.c. Flrs @6.74 #/sf. | |
| Tons of steel reduced/conserved in your entry: 11 | |
| Explanation: There are 8580 lbs per 40’ “hicube” container. This design proposes using two 40 foot, and one 20 foot containers, diverted from waste for use as the main components of the house. | |
| Tons of aluminum reduced/conserved in your entry: 1 | |
| Explanation: We propose the use of recycled aluminum sash windows. This represents a net zero impact in new aluminum use, but conservation of about 800 lbs in window frames (Guesstimate, depends on extrusion). | |
| Tons of carpet reduced/conserved in your entry: 0 | |
| Explanation: Since no carpet is proposed, we are not suggesting a savings of carpet. All the floors in the house are bamboo. Area rugs can be used to offer softness as needed. | |
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| Tons of other material reduced/conserved in your entry: | |
| Explanation: | |
| Tons of Green House Gasses Reduced: 2 | |
| Discussion of Green House Gas reduction implications of your entry: Although the tool selected was developed for use in calculating greenhouse gas emmissions for schools in England, it is a good bit more robust than many of the web-available tools for houses. The vast array of available tools are either immensely complex calculation tools intended for actual construction process calculation during a build, or extremely simple pre-design modeling tools. This one offers better input options with some flexibility to add information pertaining to the specific design during the schematic phase. Use of the "Special School" category allows some "customization" of the building shell to a more residential building type. The tool allows us to compare a baseline shell of the same square footage regardless of the building use, so the comparison between a baseline CO2 usage and the more efficient design is accurate in any case. The savings in this design derive largely from three primary design areas: Orientation and Efficient Cooling, Automatic Lighting Control/Lighting Efficiency, and Lighting Zone Controls. These three areas provide roughly 1 ton of CO2 emmission reduction annually alone over a baseline design. An optional photovoltaic array is considered inthe design of this entry as well, and would reduce the overall carbon footprint of the house significantly. This entry form and submittals do not allow me to submit the actual calculation results from the spreadsheet, however, I am happy to send via email my calculation in this excel format upon request of the judging panel. | |
| Measurement tool used to calculate GHG reduction: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/12286/Carbon%20Calculator%20v1.1.xls | |
| Website of GHG measurement tool used: http:// | |
| Other energy conservation features of your entry: A photovoltaic array can easily be added to the roof of this structure. This would provide natural shading for the roof surface itself, as well as electrical power for the house. The area available would successfully power the modest house in most temperate climates with current technology. An additional hot water solar collection panel could be added as well if so desired. | |