The Many Architectural Applications of Shipping Containers vol.10

Building a summer or winter vacation house according to one’s own design sounds fantastic, but you might be worried about the costs or confused about the choice of material. Luckily, there is a solution – shipping containers!

Besides shipping goods, shipping containers are also suitable for building beautiful homes in low cost. Actually, the price of an individual 40 ft or 20ft shipping container starts from US 2000.

Building out of recycled shipping containers is as good as using totally new ones, and it is also cheaper. Besides low-cost, shipping containers are also durable and can be considered as a form of sustainable building. Containers are so durable that they can even be converted into shelters for natural disasters.

What’s more, shipping containers come with unlimited design opportunities. The door solutions of shipping containers come in many forms and open-top containers can be transformed into swimming pools. Containers can also be piled into a complexes of your desire. There are great examples of homes, hotels and stores that show container’s great architectural design. The container city in Mexico is know also for its visual design.

Shipping containers are also suitable for places where winters are long and cold, and where it snows a lot.  There are examples of shipping container winter homes that are suitable for Northern 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. See also our prefabricated container buildings. Check also our social media platforms for new updates.

    

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: The Fair Verona, Jetson Green, Small Cabin Plans, Tiny House Blog, Inhabitat, Bustler, Bustler, Competitiononline,AC-CA, Wikipedia on Shipping Container Architecture

Continue to chapter 11.

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What you didn’t know about air-conditioning

I am not a big fan of air-conditioning but in some parts of the world you just can’t survive without it. There is no doubt that the invention of air-conditioning is considered to be one of the most important achievements in the twentieth century and has hugely impacted the world. Despite the fact, that the air-conditioning is just here, quietly humming, you probably don’t know much about it.

Basic facts about air-conditioning

Willis Carrier

The first modern air conditioner was Willis Carrier in 1902 for a publishing company in Brooklyn. Temperature and humidity were kept low so paper didn’t contract or expand. The air conditioner wasn’t intended to be used for comfort.

Each air conditioner has four basic components : pump, evaporator, condenser, and expansion valve. Most of air conditioners start out as a raw material in the form of steel shapes and steel sheets. When the sheet metal is processed into fabrication, it is cut, punched, formed, drilled or bent into am useful shape or form. It is made of galvanized sheet metal that uses a zinc coating providing a protection against corrosion.

Air conditioner

Interesting facts about air-conditioning

• the first public places having air conditioners were movie theaters. During hot summer days, these theaters were the coolest places in town so you can probably imagine those crowds. Studios started to release their best productions in the summer and that’s how modern summer blockbuster  was born.
• each year United States uses the same amount energy for powering the air conditioners as Africa uses to power the entire continent.
• the introduction of air-conditioning actually lowered the natural human tolerance for heat.
• the first building using the air-conditioning was The New York Stock Exchange Building in NYC in 1903 designing and building houses was changed after air conditioner was introduced. Brick structures with high ceilings, porches, breezeways that provided shade for cooling occupants are gone.

Shanghai Metal Corporation uses air conditioning for cooling employees and at the same time sells galvanized steel, steel sheets and other high-quality metal products. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry and our English speaking staff will help you to choose the best product for you. Download a new application by scanning QR code below.

    

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read articles written by this author here.

Original pictures and websites : madehow.com, divinecaroline.com, timothyoffheating.com, googleimages

Pay For Your Burger With Recycled Cans

Recycled aluminum cans have never been so wanted these days. Coca-Cola is the greater innovator when it comes to marketing campaigns such as China’s Coke Lyrics and now the partnership with McDonalds’ Australia, Coke Rewards, giving away rewards as you collect tokens.

Now McDonald’s takes one step further as an effort to get its fair share in this endless social marketing industry. Following an eco-conscious marketing move, McDonald’s in Stockholm is using recycled cans as currency in exchange for burgers. Part of an interactive campaign designed to the food chain company the advertising agency DDB Stockholm has created a huge incentive to young Swedes unwittingly clean up after them, especially during the summer time when parks and festivals leave behind piles of emptied aluminum beer and soda cans around the city.

As DDB Stockholm puts it, “you’ll find a lot of young people with empty drink cans and empty wallets”. As Simon Higby, a DDB Stockholm creative, puts it, “Youngsters don’t always have so much cash, but sometimes they can get empty cans. So, accepting cans in return for burgers gets them to McDonald’s and the cans to the recycling depot. Everyone’s happy.”

All you have to do is to fill up a bag provided by McDonald’s with 10 cans in exchange for a hamburger or cheeseburger or 40 cans for a Big Mac. The recycling bags can be found attached to strategically installed billboards, which function as a dispenser for free bags – you just tug on the poster’s bottom to get your bag and you are ready to go to the nearest McDonald’s store to get your free burger.

The Swedish fast food chain now accepts “cards, cash and cans” and is an attempt to align the “making profit” during summer time with environmental concerns. By getting a burger the youngster will ultimately opt for fires or a drink to go with it, increasing sales of such items.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of aluminum sheet (aluminum plate) widely used in the manufacturing of Coke aluminum cans. To find out more about us, please visit our Website, WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook  and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21 and Tradekey.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Source and picture: adweek.com, ddb.se, inhabitat.com, adweek.com, creativityonline.com, coloribus.com, 11even.net

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Living on the Edge of a Floating House

In today’s world people are taking construction business the dew dimensions. The ultimate extremes seem to be in space and underwater but another setting of prefab architecture is on the surface of water.

The world has many examples of beautiful floating architecture. A floating house has basically two features that are superior compared to their on-the-ground counterparts.

First, floating houses offer safety in areas suffering from floods. An article on BBC tells about an idea of floating houses saving people from UK’s floods. Besides residence, also school buildings have been converted into floatable forms. The concept of floating school buildings has already been applied in Nigeria.

Second, a floating building also operates as a transportation method. An example has been set in Finland, where sauna rafts have become a sort of a summer trend. Sauna rafts are basically rafts that are equipped with motor engines that move the raft in a moderate speed. Inhabitat has written more about the design of Finnish sauna rafts that also include a patio and hammocks. Formerly Shanghai Metal Corporation wrote an article about container saunas and container swimming pools, but this solution has both of them in one package.

For construction businesses the environment brings challenges as we’ve seen in case of floating architecture. In large major projects it’s the pioneers of the business who define the standards for quality. Shanghai Metal Corporation is one of them, not only because of the width of its business that encompasses prefab building, containers and steel building but also due its success in executing successful projects including some of the largest steel bridges in China.

For information about our construction projects, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: BBC, The Huffington Post, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat

Bathing Made Mobile with Container Saunas

There are a number of ways how to reuse used shipping containers. Besides houses, offices, hotel, art galleries, stores and pools, shipping containers can be now used as saunas. A Canadian design studio Castor has designed the first container sauna.

The 8 ft container is a fully-operational sauna box that uses wood for heating and solar energy for lighting. The mobile sauna also comes with an integrated iPod stereo and an electric guitar hook-up. Also additional creature comforts such as a magnetic truck light, castor stool, and bronze antlers are included.

Sauna is originally a Finnish invention and is deeply rooted into the nation’s way of life. The Finnish history of using sauna for bathing and staying healthy spans over two thousand years. The Finns have a sauna in every house but they also place saunas in the lake or seaside of their summer cottages. Finns have formerly used portable saunas especially in military. Those saunas are most commonly made of tents.

 

The Finnish Sauna Society has made a list of sauna’s health benefits. Taking a sauna bath is studied to enhance sleep quality and memory, to lower blood pressure, increase energy levels and to cause good mood just to name but a few.

 

According to an article of Gizmag, Castor has sold about 10 units. The Sauna Box is priced really high-end with US 41,000 price tag. It is still unclear when the Canadian company will get competitors.

If you need a shipping container for your sauna solution, please contact us in Shanghai Metal Corporation. We are a major Chinese provider of shipping containers and we offer our solutions worldwide. To know more about our containers, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook,LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles:  Gizmag.com, Gizmodo.com, Designboom.com,Gardenista.com, Hiconsumption.com, The Finnish Sauna Society

Party in a Box! Going Wild in Container Night Clubs!

Shipping Containers are designed to transport freight in rough weather conditions for long distances. They are also all built according one international standard, so that the loading of container ships can be optimized. Later on, their structure inspired architects to design modular houses and now containers are used also e.g. as hotels, stores and offices. Now they are also building night clubs out of containers.

Shipping containers have strong foundations on each of four corners. The foundations enable stacking and piling them into huge real estate complexes. A Singaporean company Venue VBox is using this feature to build mobile discotheques out of containers.

The company’s “Night Box” pop-up nightclub is a container systems that can hold 500 people. Such systems are applied also in other countries. For instance New Orleans’ 2009 and 2010 Voodoo Music experience event has had VIP lounges made of shipping containers. It has been more common for businesses to open a temporary bar for crowded events by using a single container. Used containers cost between US 1000 and 2000. The price, mobility and overall attractiveness makes containers a great solution for arranging mobile parties.

Such internationally standardized containers can be purchased from Shanghai Metal Corporation. We offer basic containers, open-top containers and refrigerated containers to name but a few. More information can be found in our website. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. We have also launched a mobile application that you can download by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P.// SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles:  Trendhunter.com, Rocknrollproblems.wordpress.com, Intra-plus.com, Shipping Container Architecture on Wikipedia