Advocates for shipping container homes say speed of installation, cost savings on materials and the capacity to re-use units in new locations make it a serious option for urban housing. The latest exhibition at The Building Centre in central London captures the trend. Designers are offering lunchtime tours of a model shipping container home, asking whether these “highly adaptable and move-able” objects might play a much bigger role in easing the housing crisis.
So what’s it like to actually live in one? Ader says his Amsterdam container is cosy: each one has a living space, bathroom and balcony. Insulated panels and radiators help keep the place warm in winter. Privacy has not been a problem. In fact, Ader found it too quiet. He helped organise block parties and “eat with your neighbour” events to make Wenckebachweg a little livelier.
It’s also cheap. Residents here pay €450 a month (£335) and also qualify for a €140 monthly housing subsidy, making it much less expensive than the €600 a month Ader says students often pay to share a flat in central Amsterdam.
“There aren’t many disadvantages,” Ader concludes. “I myself wouldn’t want to share with my girlfriend – the container is a bit too small for that, although we do have some couples living here and they’re happy. I think this kind of housing works best for single people who need something a little bit cheaper.”
“You can put all kinds of cladding around the structure, put roofs on, do a lot of different things, but it all comes at extra cost,” he adds. “We’re still trying to overcome the idea that a steel box is not a good place to live. People think bricks and mortar are eternal, but that’s not the case. Gradually the psychology is changing. I think we will see many more housing projects using containers in future.”
Architects are already dreaming big. Or more accurately, dreaming high. CRG Architects has unveiled a proposal to replace slum housing in developing countries with “container skyscrapers”: enormous towers made up of brightly-painted units stacked to look cylindrical. Another colourful design for high-rise container towers is aimed at easing pressure in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum.
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Not everyone is convinced steel boxes in the sky are the future of mass housing. Mark Hogan, principal architect at San Francisco-based practice OpenScope, thinks devoting shipping containers to housing “doesn’t make any sense”. That’s mainly because cost savings begin to disappear as soon as you start playing around with containers’ basic structure, try to meld units together, or do anything fancy with stacking arrangements.
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The advantages of shipping container housing – sustainability and cost – may well prove too good to ignore. Yet its champions could learn some lessons from the world of the self-builders. People the world over want homes which feel permanent. So containers will have to overcome the perception of being stop-gap, make-do dwellings if they are ever to become a popular solution to the housing crisis.