In Container Homes Winter Is Always Outside

Shipping containers are a superior building material and the mainstream for affordable housing. As a form of prefabricated construction, shipping containers houses can to huge extent be built elsewhere than in their final destination. In order for shipping containers to become livable homes, they need a makeover including a proper insulation.

Shipping containers are usually described as an optimum construction material for areas with relatively high temperatures. The reason is that there are well know techniques on how make shipping container houses naturally ventilated. For instance the shipping container cruise terminal in Seville is designed to resist high temperatures during hot summers.

Shipping containers are also suitable for places where winters are long and cold, and where it snows a lot. Originally shipping containers were designed to resist rough weather in the seas during shipping and therefore shipping containers later became an excellent building material. It seems that shipping container architecture was invented like Coca-Cola – by accident.

There are examples of shipping container winter homes that are suitable for Northern countries such as Northern USA, Canada, Finland and other Nordic countries.  For instance an American real estate agent Jeffrey White is transforming shipping containers into affordable and eco-friendly homes for low-income families in Salt Lake City. Each home is made out of two shipping containers, and the whole projects costs 120,000 dollars including the land they sit on. (source)

In order to build beautiful homes like these, the shipping containers need to be enforced with proper insulation. In Shanghai Metal Corporation we sell both shipping containers and highly moisture resistant glass wool for insulation.  Our prefabricated container homes come with polystyrene foam insulation. If you are building affordable homes we will gladly offer you all the material. Just send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will contact you. Meanwhile please visit our social media sites for future updates.

    

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: The Fair Verona, Jetson Green, Small Cabin Plans, Tiny House Blog, Inhabitat

广告

Coca Cola Saves Lives with Shipping Containers!

One of the world’s most valuable brands Coca-Cola is utilizing shipping containers in its corporate social responsibility program in developing countries within the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) category. Together with Deka R&D and other major investors including UPS and IBM, the beverage company is installing container kiosks that will provide drinkable water for three billion people in the world that suffer from the lack of it.

These Ekocenters are to provide purified water for communities that have a limited access to safe drinking water. The modularly designed kiosk is made out of a 20 ft shipping container. The container is empowered with Slingshot technology that is responsible for the purification of water.

 

The kiosk is also meant to generate entrepreneurship in developing countries, especially among women. Along with these kiosks Coca-Cola has also launched their 5by20 program that aims to generate 5 million women entrepreneurs by the year 2020.

As discussed in our previous article about container shops, setting a container kiosk is a considerable business also in developed countries. Coca-Cola has redeveloped the concept and is now using the Ekocenters for offering locally tailored mix of products, services and resources that also include sustainable energy, wireless communications, refrigerated vaccination storage, health education, and other functionality to jump-start entrepreneurship opportunities and community development.

This CSR project begun in 2013 as Coca-Cola set up its first Ekocenter in South Africa. The company aims to install 1,500 to 2,000 Ekocenters by 2015 in Africa, Asia and the Latin and North America.

As shipping containers gain more ways of use, we in Shanghai Metal Corporation are also becoming happier in offering our international customers high-quality standardized shipping containers. For details about our large variety of products, please visit our website or just send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will contact you. Meanwhile please remember to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Coca-Cola Company, Coca-Cola Company Press Release, Food and Beverage News,  Designboom, 3BL Media, Expok News

Better Education Obtained in Container Schools

Today shipping containers are used to build apartments, hotels, stores and saunas to name but a few. But why does it make sense to build schools out of containers?

The first reason is that especially old wooden school buildings are likely to have mold issues that may cause severe health risks. For example an article of a Finnish science magazine Tiede states that every second school in Finland has mold issues (source). Students are therefore either forced to stay in their mold school or move to another school. Container schools could be installed in relatively short time and with relatively low costs.

The second reason can be studied from Samsung. In 2012, the South Korean electronics chaebol established a shipping container school in the South African village of Phomolong as a part of its corporate-social responsibility program. The school offers its 21 students premium education facilities with solar powered electricity system and notebooks, an Internet connection and Samsung Galaxy tablets. (source)

In Orange County California, creative architects had an over three months projects of expanding the Waldorf School in Costa Mesa by using shipping containers. It took 99 days to build four buildings out of 32 shipping containers. The eco-friendly construction project cost two million US dollars which was estimated of being 10-20 percent cheaper than an “old-school” building project. Also it would have most likely taken more time than 99 days to finish by using other material than shipping containers.

There are many types of internationally standardized shipping containers. Some have an open top and some can be opened from the sides. Thereby it gives designers limitless opportunities to develop mobile education facilities. In order to solve mold related problems or take education to less developed areas, governments, nonprofit organizations and companies’ CSR managers should look for containerized education solutions.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a proud provider of shipping containers. Our wide variety of container products can be seen in our website http://www.smccontainer.com. We hope that you also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also try our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Tiede magazine, Cnet, The Volt Report, Arch Daily, Wintech Modular Buildings, Lion Containers, Design Boom