I’m still intrigued by the idea of the shipping container as an element for some kinds of basic construction.

There are cases where it becomes nothing more than an image element, and the containers themselves are so worked over and re-engineered that any benefit that may have come from using them as a simple prefabricated system is lost. I still find those interesting visually, sometimes. But I don’t particularly like the abandonment of the essentials of the material. If you are going to use something, you ought to use it honestly.

I’d like to work on a small house concept that uses a couple of containers as the structural base. I have a couple different elements I have been thinking about, but I’m not sure they are compatible with one another.

One idea is that the container itself is able to support a good deal of load, and that one of the biggest drawbacks in using them is that the containers themselves are narrow. But it should be possible to set two containers down with some separation between them, and then use some other structure to span the gap and create a larger space.

Another idea I’ve had is to create a bracket that could be attached to the container itself which would serve to create an overhang and roof. The projection from the face would help to provide shade for solar control. I’ve also thought that vegetated roofs for shipping container construction just make so much sense. Containers are strong enough to support the load easily, and this bracket idea should be robust enough that it could carry the roof system out to the edge.

Putting the two ideas together means that the spanning structure needs to become heavier if it is going to carry the load of a vegetated roof. So the two ideas aren’t incompatible. But I don’t know how well they go together necessarily.

One further idea is the concept of using shipping containers stacked on top of an existing building as a fast and interesting method for adding inexpensive space to a building. The image at the top is an incomplete model for the Longshore project (what I previously called the Theoretical Project, where 56′ long containers would be used to span the existing one-story building (assuming the masonry walls were, in fact, adequate to support the added load).
This photo from an earlier post about that project shows the existing building from a similar perspective.

The projecting roof on top of the containers that is, in fact, the bracket/overhang green roof. The stack of 3 containers (meant to be a stair tower to the new second floor) is perhaps committing the very sin I was just complaining about in using the container look, but requiring a lot of extra structure to actually make it work. This was never anything but a concept, so I never got further into how it might actually work.

I expect I will keep on exploring these ideas in the coming year. Stay tuned for more.

Other articles on the topic of shipping containers:
The Pros and Cons of Cargo Container Architecture from Arch Daily

Exhibition about shipping container architecture in Dusseldorf earlier this year. (Click the headline image for the slide show)

Top 10 LEED snafus – an article to share with LEED classes.

Green or Greenwash The Quiz This one, from Building Green, isn’t easy, even if you’re deeply involved in sustainability and green building. I got what I’d consider a borderline pass on this myself (9 out of 12), though I would argue the subjective nature of one of the questions that I answered differently than their correct answer.

A lot of what all of the visiting critics were asked to address was the presentation of the information. In a competition, you aren’t there to explain your board(s), so all the information needs to be there and needs to be well organized and readily understandable. Getting into that mindset has gotten me thinking about that whole part of architecture. While it is (at least one hopes) helpful to provide feedback to the students about their projects, it is also good to stretch some of the mental muscles with thinking about things that often don’t get that much consideration in the post-school working world.

I also saw this image in a recent AIArchitect newsletter (about the stalled projects database, which is a topic for another day) which I thought was particularly effective. Instead of just looking at it and hoping that I remember it, I’m saving it here for future reference.

I’ve noticed that architectural presentation (or display) boards (and variants thereof) are one of the big search terms that keeps leading people to this site. I don’t think that I’m a particular source of information on that topic, but maybe it’s something that I can actually be helpful with for others, as well. Architects can always use more visual ideas, and I’ll stay on the lookout for other sites with good images for presentations. I’d appreciate references to other good sites with info about this, as well.

It would be interesting to do a course that was entirely about information presentation, and the project design was secondary (or even a non-factor entirely), not unlike my old materials and Methods class, or other non-studio classes I took where we still tried to incorporate a bit of design in the assignments, but where that wasn’t the focus of the class.

The other class idea I’ve been thinking about is a materials and research class that would focus on developing the skills to search out and evaluate new materials. Again, it would not be a studio class, but would be focused on seeking out new materials, critically considering their claims and benefits, and figuring out how they might best be used in actual practice.

I’d like to share his fate, with a similar circumstance; there’s a building that is now for sale in Ann Arbor at Beakes and Fifth, just north of Kerrytown [here's the real estate listing for it].

I’ve long had an idealized view of this building as an architects’ studio/family loft. I’ve seen several Chicago loft conversions of old industrial buildings like this that have been turned into residential/office spaces like that, and the building typology and the location would be pretty wonderful. I just don’t happen to have a spare 7 figures to spend on this.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t work on it as a project.

Eventually, someone is going to buy the building and want to do something with it. Unless it’s another architect who buys it (someone with my kind of ideas, plus a less anemic wallet), they’re likely to need an architect for it, and I’d be thrilled to be involved in working on this.

Apparently, this building has been being used as an indoor parking garage for quite a few years. It deserves something far better than that. It’s only a single story, so there could be an opportunity to build upwards. The site is at the edge between the Kerrytown district and a residential neighborhood. It’s not right for a huge expansion, and I suspect the irregular size and tight site would make it prohibitively difficult to do anything that really blew out the existing building.

So, let me know if you’re interested in doing something with this building, or if you know someone who would like to do something with it.

One aspect of my career as an employee was that I constantly wanted to have more knowledge and insight about the business practices of running a project and running a firm. The moves I made when I changed firms were, at least to some extent, driven by a (perceived) opportunity to have more exposure to that level of the business (though I’d say in retrospect, it never really worked out like that). So it’s good to find an article discussing the business side of practice.

I’m not sure now who flagged it to bring it to my attention (someone on Twitter, I think), but this is a very good article about When ethics of professional school and business clash that discusses some of the dichotomy between education and what the operation of a business requires.

I’m always interested in finding more information about the business of running a small architectural practice. When I was at the state AIA meeting a few weeks ago, I learned that there is a statewide Small Firm Roundtable. At present, it’s a pretty dormant group, but there’s supposed to be new information coming from the national organization to give the different state and regional groups a new impetus, so I’ll look forward to that.

I should also be more on the lookout for other small firm practitioners who are blogging and writing about the day-to-day aspects of practice. It’s lonely out there, and professional colleagues are a good thing to have.

What can you do if you’d like to use an energy efficient light bulb, but you think that they look funky? How about a LED bulb that looks and functions almost exactly like an incandescent filament bulb?

Panasonic has introduced a clear bulb with a standard base that looks almost identical to an incandescent. It has a warm 2700K light color, similar to an incandescent. It has the lifespan (40,000+ hours) you would expect from an LED. And it only uses 4.4 watts of power, but produces 210 lumens, the light equivalent to a 20-watt incandescent.

This bulb also has a color rendering index (CRI) of 80, which is similar to other LEDs and good CFL bulbs. And, as with other LED bulbs, the bulb contains no mercury.

Read the whole article at Jetson Green.

Wave power is an intriguing but difficult proposition. It offers a fairly steady source of power that is more regular than many other renewable power systems, but the marine environment is particularly harsh and difficult to work in. A number of wave power projects have struggled in the past few years, which shows how difficult this approach can be.

A mobile wave power generating system proposed by Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation would install wave generators along with banks of storage batteries onto ships or barges for portable wave power generation. The ship would go to sea and deploy its generators, and then return back to port and connect its batteries to the grid when it was fully charged.

Read the whole article at EcoGeek.

Incorporating solar power onto airships is not an entirely new idea, but we continue to find interesting developments of the concept. The latest is the Solar Ship,a hybrid aircraft that merges bouyant lifting and aerodynamics as well as thin-film solar panels. The combination makes for a long-range vessel that is able to take-off and land on very short airfields.

Earlier studies have been critical of the efficiency of airships, finding that trucks offer a lower overall cost in time and energy. But that presupposes the existence of a network of available roads. While developed areas may be more readily served by trucks, they are less than ideal for many other parts of the world.

The Solar Ship concept was specifically developed for use in areas without a network of roads available. The two areas being focused on at present are to provide medical services in remote areas and to provide cargo transport alternatives to the “ice roads” presently used to move supplies in the high Arctic.

Read the whole article at EcoGeek.

Colorado has millions of acres of pines throughout its forests that have been killed by an infestation of beetles. New Town Builders, a residential homebuilder in Denver, Colorado, has begun using salvaged wood from these trees for the structural framing of homes it is constructing. The company was approached about building a single demonstration home using wood from lodgepole pine trees which had been killed by themountain pine beetle. New Town found that the wood was discolored but structurally sound and has now begun using the “blue wood” for all of their framing.

[Read the whole article at JetsonGreen.]

Space colonies seemed to be a natural extension of the program of venturing into space in the 60s and 70s. Astronauts led the way, and the rest of us would follow in a few decades. Maybe there was some good rationale for having thousands of people living in space. New manufacturing processes were one concept. But what can you make better in space than you can elsewhere? And where would you get the materials to make it with?

The same thing is going on with vertical farming. A lovely rendering seems full of possibility and allure, but the fundamental reality is that it would be enormously expensive way of providing a very tiny fraction of the farming space needed.

I still love space colonies and vertical farms, but in the same way that I love science fiction movies, not as something I think has a serious place in policy discussion, as much as I might love for it to be otherwise.