All photos by Javier Callegras from CG Architectes

Mocoloco shows us the CrossBox by CG Architectes, built from four shipping containers….Read the full story on TreeHugger

SEED blog

The Clemson University School of Architecture is having a moment of fame with their SEED project, where they turn shipping containers into housing. In the wake of the Haiti disaster, Professor Doug Hecker tout the virtues of the magic box in Science Daily:

“Because of the shipping container’s ‘unibody’ construction they are also very good in seismic zones and exceed structural code in the United States and any country in the world,” Hecker said. “They have also been used in other countries as emergency shelters in the case of eart…Read the full story on TreeHugger

TreeHugger has previously shown the proposal for the Box Office, “12 office/studio spaces constructed from 32 recycled shipping containers on an abandoned strip of Providence history.”

Now we learn from Sharable that it is well under construction. They also show a fascinating time-lapse video of the construction….Read the full story on TreeHugger

Danish architects MAPT sent us pictures of their COP15 pavilion, an “interactive exhibition focusing on urban sustainability” built out of shipping containers. Dezeen posts it with copy, so we learn that it is sort of a demonstration project for containerized housing, although this particular installation is neither insulated or enclosed. The architects write:…Read the full story on TreeHugger

I was poking around in the Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse and amazed to find dozens of interesting designs for shipping container housing by designers of all abilities from all over the world. There seems to be no end to the enthusiasm for them. A case still can be made that they are designed for freight, not people, but imaginative responses keep coming. We did a roundup last year, but have covered enough new projects to do another….Read the full story on TreeHugger

Food and Water House by Studio Terpeluk

One of the reasons TreeHugger has loved prefab so much is that by doing things more than once, an architect gets to work out the bugs and get it right. They don’t all have to be identical, but they do have to get better each time. That is also a virtue of the stock home plan business; if you sell a plan for a house already built, you can fix your mistakes. Prefab and home plans also let architects make a living with smaller houses, earning enough by doing a number of iterations to justify the amount of work it takes to do a decent job. For the client…Read the full story on TreeHugger