Why Use Shipping Containers in Buildings?

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1. The container itself

During the early years of the Roman Empire, Vitruvius wrote a textbook on architecture that
specified three features that buildings should have:

firmitas (firmness, strength, stability)
utilitas (utility, correctness to purpose)
venustas (beauty).

Shipping containers seem to be very successful in meeting the first two criteria. After all they are made to be stackable, made to last despite being shipped across oceans and continents. As for beauty, well to a certain extent that's up to you (and your architect) to achieve.

But besides meeting these general criteria, containers appear to offer several more specific benefits. In particular:

availability (the US has a surplus of them)
economy (I have seen used containers as low as $1500 in the USA)
malleability (for anyone who can weld and cut metal)
durability (they survive salt air and cranes)
portability (even across oceans)
modularity (a modernist idea...): for instance stackability (using proper hardware)
reusability (for environmental correctness)
transformability (see Lot/ek Mobile Dwelling Unit)

Several of these characteristics are especially important in light of the predicament that many consumers now find themselves in, namely the high cost of housing.

2. Corrosion

Shipping containers are designed to endure salty ocean air, which is more corrosive: therefore they're coated with a zinc-laden paint which protects against the salty air. If you look at how containers have been used as housing or other buildings, you'll notice a pattern, namely that they tend to be used close to water. My guess is that if you want a structure to use more inland, a different kind of container would be a better choice than a steel one. You'll notice that containers used in trucking often use aluminum, no doubt in part because that metal is lighter but also because it is more appropriate for that environment.

Here is a useful introduction about corrosion: link.

3. The zoning situation

Although containers should be perfectly usable in conventional residential situations especially when stacked, paired (as in the Berkeley market), and used to create an interior space using a roof kit (as in the 12-Container House), not to mention when they are used as mini-hotels, it also occurs to me that containers may especially handy in situations where a foundation is not permitted, but a mobile structure is permitted. Weekend retreats, writer's sheds, and the like are ideal uses for container houses.

Why Use Shipping Containers in Buildings?

1. The container itself

2. Corrosion

3. The zoning situation

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