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RE: Testing, please ignore
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Eric Meinert
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Jan 12, 2007 14:22 PST
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I imagine that a high cube container will not be affected by insulation enought to reduce the ceiling below eight feet, even with an insulated floor. The walls may be another matter.
The way I envisage a container habitat being efficient and livable is through the ability to extend the width by modular add ons, bringing the total width to about twelve, or at least ten feet. Expansive glass will also go a long way towards eliminating the claustrophobic limits of an eight foot width module.
I think that the real benefits of container habitation are in the cost savings of factory installation of all mechanical systems, including fit up options like flooring materials.
Visualise automobile or bus assembly lines. The scale and repetition allows for economical subassemblies and precision installation. Ironically, the most suitable people for designing the ecologically sustainable container home are people with experience in the assembly of automobiles. If people think that the results of this level of standardization will produce sterile, unexciting, and monotonous housing, they are mistaken. Look at the choice of automobiles on the market today. There is a car to express the personality of every driver, from Hummers to Smart Cars. And within each brand and model there are color and finish options as well. Imagine a home designed by the people at Mercedes Benz.
This approach is the solution to the planet's housing needs, not more 'Modern' custom homes as seen in DWELL magazine and other such sources of 'inspiration'. Modernism was inspired by the efficiencies of mass production, to benefit the masses. Unfortunately, it became a vehicle of an elite need to separate itself from the 'tasteless' masses. The result was an architecture which I call Potempkin Modernism. Modern only on the surface, with an intention to impress. The furnishings are similarly elitist, with simple designer 'functional' pieces fetching outrageous prices that leave the ordinarly shopper with no recourse but IKEA for anything modern and affordable. Part of the problem with the lack of acceptance by the public for Modernist architecture (including Container dwellings) is this ironic lack of affordability of modern design
offerings. The second major obstacle is the inchoate quality of many modern designs. Again the comparision with automobiles is instructive. The public has no issue whatsoever with the modern and forward looking products of the automobile industry. Even the most ordinarly car features sleek aerodynamic lines, machine esthetic colors, and complex instrument panels. You do not find people demanding that cars look like horse drawn buggies. Yet in architecture, people want houses that look like they are from the horse and buggy age, with ornamental flourishes and traditional materials. Why? Because the alternative offerings are so often sterile or eccentric. Compare a forward looking automobile design, such as a Mercedes Benz, with a modern home, such as a DWELL home.
The Mercedes is symmetrical in design, and its overall esthetic expresses what it is, a machine designed to move. Now look at a 'modern' home. Typically there is a deliberate lack of symmetry, and the choice of materials is mixed, such as currogated metal combined with natural wood. Can you imagine a Mercedes with three doors on one side, and one on the other? With a flat roof and wooden door panels? The inconsistency and asymmetry is unattractive.
Container homes offer the benefit that they tightly constrain the designer, due to their strict modular availability. This, ironically, can result in an architecture with the ageless appeal of vernacular architecture. That is, an architecture where the houses are fundamentally similar, with minor variations constrained, and all designs expressing with honesty and charm their fundmental contruction and material.
From: Eric Patrick <eric.p-@undp.org>Reply-To: Dymaxi-@topica.comTo: Dymaxi-@topica.comSubject: RE: Testing, please ignoreDate: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:42:14 +0300
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Hi Deb
Good point; but does this not significantly reduce the living space? Also, are they not considerably more expensive
Eric
From: deborah drew [mailto:dtd-@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 9:13 PMTo: Dymaxi-@topica.comSubject: Re: Testing, please ignore
Eric,
Regarding heat. Refrigerated containers are well insulated, works both ways. A fellow Canadian.
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