nature – Shanghai Metal Corporation

Tree Houses Are Not Just for Kids

Today’s trend is to behave as much eco-friendly as you can. Recycle everything what is recyclable, produce less waste, save energy, build your houses in a sustainable way – live in harmony with nature.

These tree houses supported by metal piles are a great example of low-energy solutions, compost system and low water use taps and showers.

Bower House Construction uses computer technology for “printing off” the site all of the tree house’s components. This technology reduces construction waste and does not disrupt the surrounding natural eco-system.

Metal piles are screwed into the ground with a hydraulic power pack so that it causes a minimal impact around sensitive zones and it can be completely removed whenever there is a need.

Every house is insulated with sheep’s wool or recycled cellulose providing a comfortable temperature inside the house. There are compost toilets, low water flow taps and showers. Recycled and recyclable materials are used throughout the interior so you feel like surrounded by nature. Maybe these houses are not for everyone but it definitely looks cool and tries to use eco-friendly systems to protect the environment.

Shanghai Metal Corporation provides high-quality metals, steel and copper used in architecture or for other applications. For more information visit our main website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will help you to find the most suitable product for you. Download our application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : inhabitat.com, bowerhouseconstruction.co.uk, googleimages

What will be your Halloween costume this year?

Halloween is here in a few days and you still don’t have any ideas what Halloween costume you should wear? Don’t forget that aluminium foil can save your time, energy that you would spend on looking for the best costume and the most important thing – money!

Nowadays, Halloween has grown into a seven billion dollar industry and gets bigger (not just in USA). In 2013 two thirds of American adults celebrated Halloween. Can you imagine how many tones of costumes are used just once and then discarded?

This year’s Halloween there will be $1.4 billion spent on adults costumes, $1.1 billion on children’s costumes, and $350 million on costumes for pets. So much money for pets’ costumes!! It is time to start caring about our nature and environment. You can use aluminium foil for making your costume, it is cheap and recyclable. Here are some ideas :

Super Burrito

Have a burrito superhero costume and show your pride for your favourite taqueria!

Step 1 : Wrap yourself in aluminium foil. Step 2 : Tape a construction-paper with your favourite taqueria to your foil-clad chest. Step 3 : Find something cape-like and accessorize it with boots, tights and cute underwear. Step 4 : You are ready to rock the Halloween party!

Angel Investor

Impress girls with your “Monopoly” money!

Step 1 : Get a pair of feathery angel wings and attach them to the back of your jacket. Step 2 : Take $500 bills from Monopoly game. Step 3 : Make a halo from a rolled-up aluminium foil and make it hover above your head. Step 4 : Feel good, cause you are rich (at least during a Halloween party)

Robot

Be charming in a robotic way!

Step 1 : Get some boxes and cover them with aluminium foil. Step 2 : Make holes in those boxes so that you can put them over your arms, legs and middle. Step 3 : Practice your robotic speech. Step 4 : Find a robotic female and be happy together.

Shanghai Metal Corporation sells aluminium foil and other aluminium products. If you are interested in metal, steel, copper and other products, visit our main website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download a new application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Sources : groundswell.org, thebolditalic.com, howtodothings.com, googleimages

Can a reflection from glass-steel skyscraper melt things?

The owner of a luxury car Jaguar XJ parked his sweetheart across the street from the curvy 37 story glass-and-steel skyscraper designed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly in London before an afternoon business meeting. Only two hours later, this car was giving off smells of melting and displaying clear signs of damage. The developers of the building who nicknamed it as “Walkie Talkie” for its distinctive shape, agreed to pay for the damages.

So how could skyscraper melt the car?

“Fundamentally it’s reflection,” Chris Shepherd of the Institute of Physics told the BBC “If a building creates enough of a curve with a series of flat windows, which act like mirrors, the reflections all converge at one point, focusing and concentrating the light.” The curves of “Walkie Talkie” skyscraper acted like a magnifying glass to concentrate the light on only one spot, the exact spot where Jaguar XJ was parked.

Parking has been suspended in the areas affected by the reflect sunlight. — “That spot”

The carpet in a nearby barber shop has a burn mark on the carpet from sunlight reflected off the 'Walkie Talkie' tower. — A burn mark on the carpet from sunlight reflected off the “Walkie Talkie” Tower

According to Kheir Al-Kodmany, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Walkie Talkie’s designers forgot about the fact that southern-facing building would generate a lot of heat. If it had been a northern-facing building, it would have been an issues. Luckily London isn’t a very sunny city.

“As we get more shiny, glassy metal buildings, reflected light will become a bigger deal,” John Frederick, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Chicago says. “The high reflection is good if you’re inside trying to keep intense sunlight out, but if you’re outside, you’ll be the recipient of that reflected light.” Well, sometimes it is just better to walk, leave your car safely parked at home and protect the environment.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers high-quality steel products, stainless steel, galvanized steel, steel and other metal products widely used in architecture, automotive industry etc. For more information don’t hesitate to visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download a new application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Sources : theverge.com, popsci.com, nydailynews.com, googleimages

Architecture using carbonated drink cans

When you finish drinking your beer from beer can, what do you usually do with an empty can? Just throw it to the garbage? Well, you have more options : make your own beer can sofa, get some hamburger for free or you can use it as a material for a facade of your house.

Can Cube’s facade is a system of aluminium carbonated drink cans which are enclosed in an aluminium frame. It was designed by Archi Union Architects using and integrating renewable systems to make it highly efficient and sustainable. This structure saves the energy that is normally wasted during recycling processes, by reusing them in their current form.

This Can Cube design is an innovative residential and office building in Shanghai, China. The two first floors are used as the office space, the next levels are aimed to be a space for private living.

Aluminium frame keeps the structure light and easily adjustable by its occupants. Windows sections within the structure provide a full control of sunlight during the all seasons. What is more, the facade works along the underground heating, cooling systems, rainwater filtration and solar energy systems, all of this minimize the waste of energy.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers customers high-quality aluminium and other metal products. For more information please don’t hesitate and visit the website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will be more than glad to help you. Download also our application by scanning QR code below or follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : archdaily.com, worldconstructionnetwork.com, googleimages

Container Observatory – The Best Place for First Date!

Shipping containers can be converted into various kinds of buildings ranging from homes to hotels. They can also be fit into their surrounding environment. A sunset observatory in South Korea’s Incheon makes a good example.

A Korean company named AnL Studio, has created “Ocean Scope”, an observatory for enjoying the sunset and admiring the horizon in a romantic setting. The structure is built on five shipping containers that are placed on different heights. The containers are also placed on 10, 30, 50 degree angles offering visitors different points-of-view. The containers are equipped with staircases.

In South Korea, many shipping containers are used as temporary shelters in rural areas. The containers do their purpose as shelters but still, they are not harmonized with the surrounding nature. Ocean Scope is one of those examples that show how container architecture can build a dialogue with nature.

Fitting container buildings into their surroundings is a relatively easy task. Due to their simple steel structure, container houses are mainly modified by cutting and welding that are not really labour-intensive operations. Incheon’s observatory’s stair design and the positioning of containers show what can be done with welding and cutting.

Shipping containers are designed to hold heavy weight only on their four corner pillars so excess weight on them might be very damaging. Therefore, roofing is always a challenge with container buildings. Our article on containers shelters describes one roofing solution, but the observatory shows how it can be done more conveniently. The containers are put on different angles allowing rainwater and snow pour down from them. How smart!

Shipping containers are a durable material and today’s main component for affordable and sustainable architecture. We in Shanghai Metal Corporation sell this super construction material internationally. To learn more about our containers, please visit our website. Possible inquiries can be submitted through this link. Please visit our social media sites.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Dezeen

Green Campus – Steve Jobs’ Last Wish for Apple

Before his death in 2011, Steve Jobs announced that Apple wants to build a massive and green campus in Cupertino City California. The construction project has been put off many times but Apple‘s CEO Tim Cook has told that the complex will be finished in 2016.

The sketches of the space-like building look simply astonishing. The Apple campus has been said to become one of the world’s largest corporate campuses and the world’s greenest building. 100 percent of the facilities will utilize renewable energy and just like Coca-Cola in developing countries, Apple will also use solar power in its construction.

The 260,000 square meter campus will accommodate harshly 14,000 employees who will have the possibility to utilize offices, fitness facilities, auditoriums and cafeterias inside the complex. For enabling such facilities the budget of the project has been raised to over five billion US dollars.

Designed by Foster and Partners, Apple‘s campus will be naturally ventilated meaning that air-conditioning and heating is needed only during 25 percent of a one-year period. The natural appearance will be generated 7000 surrounding trees..

Shanghai Metal Corporation is also specialist in construction projects that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. We also execute prefabricated construction projects and build homes, hotels, villas and offices out of shipping containers. If you are looking for a reliable international construction company and construction material, you should visit our website or just send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will get back to you. Meanwhile please check our social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Apple, The Verge, Bloomberg Business Week

Container Architecture – A Dialogue with Nature

Shipping containers are superior building material that enables people to build safe, durable and environmentally friendly homes with with a relatively small capital. Thanks to strong pillars in their four corners, shipping containers can be piled into high complexes. One aspect that has not gained that much attention is that shipping containers can be easily adjusted with their natural surroundings.

Shipping container architecture tries to use containers as wisely as possible in order to minimize users’ costs also after the installation process. Usually shipping container buildings are equipped with solar panels enabling the utilization of sustainable and green energy. For instance the Coca-Cola Company has installed solar-powered kiosks to many developing countries.

Shipping containers are not only modular but also adjustable. The material sets only a limited amount of limitations for designers and architects. Shipping containers can have various door solutions. Open-top containers can even be used to create swimming pools.

Because of the simple steel structure of shipping containers, only welding is needed to modify their structure. Because shipping containers are designed to carry heavy loads only on their corner pillars, roofing needs to be done with special care. You can read some tips about roofing for container shelters here.

Container houses can be built to be naturally illuminated and naturally ventilated what brings the maintenance costs down to minimum. (More details can be found through references.)They can also be implemented to be resistant of heat, just like Seville shipping container cruise terminal that does not get hot even during hot summers.

Shipping container architecture is going mainstream as more people engage in building homes, hotels, offices, entertainment centers or even private summer residences out of shipping containers. We in Shanghai Metal Corporation offer many kinds of shipping containers for industries to use. If you are interested in buying shipping containers, please send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will give you guidance. For technical specifications please visit our website. Please also follow us on our social media platforms.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Details about the container houses in the pictures : Home Edit, Inhabitat, Inthralld

Cruise Ships Resting in Container Haven

A new application for shipping containers was invented as the design companies Hombre de Piedra and buró4 built a cruise terminal out of shipping containers in the port of Seville in 2013. The container terminal is to let the passengers of the city’s river cruises to get on and off the ships.

They only needed 45 days in total to finish the project. Installing 23 shipping containers in a 500 square meter area took only two weeks. Therefore the installation costs were not high just like the terminal’s energy production costs. The terminal is naturally ventilated and it can be easily moved if necessary. The buildings’ bioclimatic solutions also ensure that it does not get hot in the terminal during Seville’s hot summers.

What’s more, the cruise terminal is designed to fit in the surrounding environment giving this piece of cargotecture a natural touch. A dialogue with the urban environment was an important objective for the project and thereby shipping containers were an obvious choice for the building material.

The city of Seville wanted a terminal that was able to handle ships with varying number of passengers sailing on the river Guadalquivir. Thanks to the use of shipping containers, the cruise terminal is also extendable allowing the agile installation of new docking pods.

In prefabricated architecture the present trends is to use shipping containers because they offer various benefits with only limited costs. Container architecture, i.e., cargotecture is a big part of today’s sustainable architecture industry. There will be more homes, hotels ect. that will be built on this super building material. Like the cruise terminal in Seville, other cargotectural innovations will emerge.

Shanghai Metal Corporation welcomes businesses all over the world to purchase our internationally standardized shipping containers. Our English speaking staff in Shanghai will guide you and consult you in finding the best products for your needs. Just send us an inquiry and we will get back to you. You can also take a look at our website for further details. Please also check our social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Hombre de Piedra, Buro4

Luxurious Dream House Looks Like A James Bond-Inspired Villa

Dream houses are all over LA and its surroundings. But I bet you haven’t seen the Desert House designed by super-organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg in Joshua Tree, located in Californias’ Mojave Desert is a fusion of what resembles a dinosaur-boned structure with a Flintstonesy feel.

Inspired by the rugged and hard surroundings the exterior of the house seems like an extension of it. Dramatically perched on the slope of a rocky hill overlooking the Mojave Desert, the property seems to disseminate amongst the rocks and stones. That feeling was only made possible due to somewhat a texture that could provide the numerous cast-concrete slabs of the exterior with touch and feel of the desert as materials.

The 3-bedroom house work began in 1988 and finished in 1993 in the 10-acre space, but the interior took about a decade for Kellogg and designer John Vurgin to create and design the house that the owners Doolittle always dreamed about. The Desert House is priced at $3 million, heating up the luxury real estate market of the Coachella Valley and surrounding desert. What makes the house so special and attractive is its balance of organic architecture. The masculine outside is counter-balanced by a somewhat feminine and warm intimate space by using concrete, steel, glass and copper for the interior, making the space genuinely comfortable to live in.

Highlights of the interiors are the parasol in the dining room made of some 800 pieces of sandblasted glass, the master bedroom’s self-standing bronze washing basin, massive amount of light and sun entering through continuous openings that separate the towering concrete panels. It is like living in a piece of art, every little detail in the house has been carefully thought of. You even feel like in a spa when listening to the water sound by the indoors waterfall. What about the scenery of the wide open arid landscape provided by spending some time in the bathtub? Breathtaking at the least.

“You don’t copy nature, you don’t emulate it, you take it for what it’s worth”, says Kellogg.

If there is any interest in checking out the property more details can be found at TTK Represents.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as copper, widely used in architectural artifacts and construction. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking professionals will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: organicmodernestate.com, yatzer.com, hiconsumption.com, la.curbed.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Architectural Triumphs With Galvanized Steel

Corrugated and sheet metals such as galvanized steel have come a long way in the architectural and construction communities from when they were simply a strong and effective material used as roofing. It has come to the point now where they can be the feature of a home or building and used both inside and out.

This idea of galvanized steel as a universal building material is shown below where the house features has used it for both a roofing material and as exterior wall cladding. This industrial appearing material, when combined with the natural aesthetic of wood creates a juxtaposition between man and nature, especially given the lush backdrop of rural Australia.

From an interior perspective there is an increasing trend to use both corrugated, flat and shaped galvanized steel for both ceilings and walls. The remarkable example below featured in the master bedroom of a modern home show how the metallic surface of galvanized steel can add a touch of modernity to a design, with the corrugated sheeting offering a texture rarely seen in the interior of a home.

The versatility of this material is undeniable, with designers stretching their imagination to previously-thought impossible lengths. As is witnessed in the examples below; the ability to bend, shape, curve and erect this material at extreme pitches can lead to some outstanding design possibilities. The home on the left features a nearly 100% external composition of pre-painted corrugated galvanized steel proving the residents with high bush-fire protection, energy efficiency as well as a remarkable aesthetic!

In contrast to these curves seen above the design featured below presents an opposing dynamic of this material. With its sheer pitched sides, long straight lengths and intense angles it is hard not to appreciate the capabilities this material offers to architects and the remarkable results that are left for the eye to enjoy.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a world leader in innovative metal manufacture and will strive to meet all of your building and design specifications. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Sources: Ral Homes, Colorbond, ArchiExpo & Freshome

Dominick F.//SMC Editor