from the ground up - The Tyee

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twentieth century, purely local markets for goods ofany sort were few and far between.”One of the world’s first purpose-built intermodalcontainer ships set sail from North Vancouver inNovember of 1955. The Clifford J. Rodgers carried600 containers to Skagway, Alaska, where they wereloaded on to rail to be carried over the White Pass tothe Yukon.Today, Port Metro Vancouver is Canada’s busiest port.More than two million “twenty-foot equivalent units,”or TEUs, flow through every year, according to portrecords. (Containers come in five basic sizes. A standard20-foot-long by 8-foot-wide container equals oneTEU. A 40-foot container is two TEUs.)The vast majority of containers arriving in Metroports hail from China, followed by Japan and Korea.And most return to the nations that sent them. Butalmost 100,000 get left behind each year.In 2009, for example, records show that a total of1,122,849 TEUs entered Port Metro Vancouver, whileonly while 1,029,613 TEUs were shipped outbound.That’s a difference of 93,236 containers.Likewise, in 2008, Metro ports took in 96,509 moreTEUs than they sent away.Those containers don’t all pile up in the Lower Mainland.Most leave the region via truck or rail car, andmany of those ultimately leave Canada via a bordercrossing or another seaport. But North America’slongstanding imbalance of trade with China and otherAsian exporters tends to create a backwash of surpluscontainers in places Vancouver and other port cities.Greener than concrete, stronger than woodContainers are built to stack nine high while carrying60,000 pounds on a deck that’s pitching on the openocean. They are built to survive decades of service ina marine environment, and, if kept painted, will lastindefinitely as part of a building.“These are just big steel boxes,” said Barry Naef,who directs the GreenCube Network and the IntermodalSteel Building Unit (ISBU) Association. Naefnoted that these boxes present the opportunity to notmerely recycle but creatively reuse what is arguablythe most durable waste product of the globalizationera. Stranded containers that are not repurposed tendto be melted down. As fuel costs rise, containers onthe wrong side of the ocean can become worth moreas scrap metal than the cost of shipping them back toChina empty.A typical 40-foot container represents about 8,000pounds of steel, which can require about 8,000kilowatt-hours of energy to melt and remanufacture.That’s about half of what a typical home uses in ayear. As a result, buildings created from used shippingcontainers function like carbon reduction and longtermstorage devices.At the same time, containers tend to replace concretein more urban settings, due to the metal boxes’strength and easy stackability. And cement is far fromgreen.The manufacturing of cement is the largest source ofcarbon dioxide emissions after fossil fuel consumption,according to U.S. government statistics. A reportby the World Business Council found that every tenpounds of cement releases nine pounds of carbondioxide emission.But according to Barry Naef, the biggest green advantageof shipping containers may be their strength.“Their strength allows the structure to provide greenroofs, green walls, solar hot water roofs, all withoutadditional supports,” Naef said. “It’s hard to do thesethings on a wood-frame structure. “Concrete is great.But when you have to go spend so much to do a greenroof, I don’t think it winds up getting built.”Construction costs 25 per cent lessIn port regions such as Vancouver, end-of-life shippingcontainers are often sold for as little as $1,500in the Lower Mainland, while pristine 40-foot “highcubes” -- which feature nine-and-a-half-foot ceilings-- can fetch $4,000. Either way, it’s substantially lessthan the cost of building a similar box out of wood orconcrete.2
The cost to convert that box to a home varies widely.Charities providing housing to Maquiladora workersin Mexico are able to convert used shipping containersinto simple homes for about $15,000 (excludingland costs). Those homes are small, but they comecomplete with doors, windows, a full bathroom andkitchen appliances for less money than most Canadiansspend on a car.Companies that provide container-based workerhousing to the oil and mining industries sell heavilybuilt pre-fab units for prices that start in the range of$35,000 per container unit. Some of these are heavilyinsulated for arctic conditions. Others include generatorsand water-processing plants. (More on these unitson Wednesday.)Custom home builders report saving an average ofabout 25 per cent against what a comparable homewould have cost to build, according to Naef. He saidcost savings vary widely according to how manyhurdles are thrown up by local zoning and buildingcode officials.“Local building codes are a real hurdle for somebuilders,” Naef said.“We need to do a much better job of educating zoningboards and building inspectors,” he said. “Eachbuilding inspector seems to have a different reasonwhy they wouldn’t let someone build with shippingcontainers. Many objections are based on false assumptions.”For example, he noted that many local buildingcodes still require studding out all the walls in orderto comply with outdated zoning ordinances. “Thisunnecessary duplication reduces --- but still does noteliminate --- the cost effectiveness of container-basedconstruction,” Naef said.Containers are built to stack. And it has been throughthe creative assembly of stacks of containers --coupled with the innovative ways of opening up theinteriors -- that a new built form has begun to emergein Europe and Asia. Here are a few examples:Container City is a collection of London-area developmentsdrawing on container techniques perfectedby a company called Urban Space Management. Thefirst project was built in East London, in 2001. TheContainer City projects include offices, retail shops,artists studios, a nursery, a youth centre, and a schoolas well as housing.“This modular technology enables construction timesand cost to be reduced by up to half that of traditionalbuilding techniques while remaining significantlymore environmentally friendly,” states Urban SpaceManagement.Keetwonen is the world’s largest container housingproject, as well as one of the simplest. The projectis a student village built from 1,050 containers nearAmsterdam city center.Though only 320 square feet, each suite has separatesleeping and living rooms, a full kitchen and bath,large windows and a private balcony. The units arewell insulated and served by a central heating system.The complex hosts cafes, shops, art studios and evenmini-gyms.And while some container projects strive to concealthe container’s industrial essence, a Korean project,Platoon Kunsthalle, takes the opposite approach. TheSeoul artists centre was created from 28 containers.New built form emerging in Europe and AsiaIn dense cities such as Vancouver, however, the greatestcost savings and the most significant green advantagesgenerally come down to the same thing: Theless land a home requires, the better.3
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How Green School Buildings Help Chi
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When it comes to meeting our future
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So Much Rain! Why Not Put It To Wor
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Discussions to this end are already
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from the ground up - The Tyee

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