Over the next week Coming Unmoored will be featuring a series of articles focused on shipping container homes…

There are a lot of architects and builders that are beginning to wake up to the idea of using cargo containers for building. There are a lot of reasons that this idea’s time has come. I thought I would take a moment and outline why I like cargo container construction.  Sure, I don’t exactly feel “girly” discussing this topic, but the more I learn about cargo container construction, the more I like it!

First, due to the current economic slowdown, there are a lot of cargo containers piling up.  By a lot, we are talking about tens of thousands of them just sitting at docks all across the world.  A very large percentage of them are in Asian ports.  It may now be possible to get a better deal than ever on a cargo container.

In terms of prices, cargo containers can be found as cheaply as $1,000, or may cost as much as $6,000 or more.  Using a cargo container that has already been manufactured and is currently on a dock somewhere getting rusty, seems like a great eco-friendly idea.

The second reason to consider building with cargo containers is that they are very strong and durable.  After all, these containers are designed to be stacked on top of one another, while full of goods.  This fact speaks volumes about the strength of these containers.

This durability translates into other benefits as well.  Insects, vermin and mold have a tough time with steel.  There are few insects that find steel worth the time. Therefore, if you live in a termite populated area, your termite problem is basically solved.

Safety is another major point in favor of using cargo containers.  Due to the material from which they are constructed, cargo containers are going to be very safe.  Since the cargo container is built out of steel, it gives a homeowner an additional layer of physical safety from storms (and potentially intrusions as well).  Replacing wood and brick with metal also makes container homes resistant to fire.

Transportation is a big plus in favor of cargo container construction.  The largest piece of your housing puzzle can be delivered on a truck directly to your housing site.  This compares nicely to having to bring out every single piece of wood and brick that you will use for your project.

If building with cargo containers sounds like something you might be interested in doing, we recommend that you find an architect that has already tackled a project in your area.  Every year more and more architects are “taking the plunge,” and building with this strong yet flexible building option.

Sustain, out of Canada, is really onto something with their innovative approach to tiny homes.  In fact, the overall end result of their work can safely be called “breakthrough.”

The miniHOME by Sustain is a series of different home concepts that really pack a lot of punch into a small space.  The concept behind their homes is that each model can stand up to extreme climates.  This is part of the reason that the miniHOME’s all have high r-values, meaning that the homes will make the most out of their heating and cooling dollars.  With those heating and cooling dollars in mind, Sustain has designed their miniHOME’s with an eye toward being off the grid.  They have incorporated high-efficiency light fixtures and appliances.  Their goal is to make their miniHOMEs energy efficient enough that they can easily be run off wind and solar.

Following this environmentally aware theme, Sustain has taken some substantial effort into making sure that they use healthy materials for all their construction materials.  These materials have an eye toward virtually eliminating indoor air pollution, as well as being highly durable and easy to maintain.  The materials employed have been used in a very stylish and hip fashion that, like all great tiny house designs, makes the space feel much larger.

The SOLO SE model incorporates all aspects of Sustain’s mission to build environmentally friendly, healthy homes that can be transported easily across North America.  This 350 square foot home uses one-tenth the water, and a truly remarkable one percent of the energy of a traditional home.  This makes the SOLO SE something of a superstar.  A home that uses one percent of the energy of a traditional home is nothing less than extraordinary. Sustain has lived up to their company name.

With the SOLO SE and the rest of its homes, Sustain has accomplished something that is rather impressive.  Reducing the energy cost of the SOLO SE down to one percent of a traditional home is a breakthrough, and hopefully hearkens to what is in store for the entire building industry.

The Brightbuilt Barn is an eco-friendly 700 square feet tiny house in Rockport, Maine that was built for around $200,000.  The BrightBuilt Barn is the end result of a team of green professionals and builders that set out to see if they could build an impressive green home.  They wanted their design to be livable and affordable while having an eye towards sustainability.

There is something very unique and very special about the BrightBuilt Barn home.  This home requires no furnace even for Maine’s notoriously chilly winters.  How is this possible?  The BrightBuild Barn uses “super insulation and extreme air-tightness.”  This milestone is accomplished by creating a continuous R-40 insulated envelope, which includes the entire house, floors, walls and ceiling.   The end result is a house so well insulated that it doesn’t need a furnace.  The BrightBarn is currently on track to earn the a LEED Platinum rating.

You might be wondering how the BrightBuilt Barn can keep homeowners warm with no furnace.  It’s so well insulated that the occupants and normal use of appliances will usually be enough to warm the home.  For days that are extremely cold, a solar water heating system will kick in.

Saving energy has been factored into the design in a variety of other ways as well.  LED lighting is used extensively, and occupants are encouraged to monitor their energy usage through a real-time feedback system.  The house has a built in indicator system that tells owners as to whether or not they are on track towards being a Net-Zero home.  A Net-Zero home means that the home is generating more energy that it uses.

In terms of energy consumption, the BrightBuilt Barn has numerous solar panels to provide needed energy.  This factor combined with the very high level of insulation provides for a home that can stay warm enough in the winter that it needs no furnace.  Almost sounds like magic, doesn’t it?  Combine this fact with the BrightBuilt Barn’s potential lifespan of 200 years and you have a true winner.

Additional information on the BrightBuilt Barn can be found on their website and their Wiki.

Part of the appeal of tiny homes is that they allow one to have a smaller environmental footprint. Another approach to the same goal is to increase population density in an area and to share more resources communally. As this second approach continues to grow in popularity, an increasing number of ecovillages are starting to appear in North America.

Below is another Peak Experience video featuring Robert Bolman, a natural builder who has created Maitreya Ecovillage in Eugene, OR.

This interview includes examples of several different natural building techniques that might be useful to small home builders who want to build as sustainably as possible.

Additional information about Maitreya Ecovillage can be found on their website.

If you’ve ever made the trip to New Zealand, you know that getting there is worth the killer plane ride.  Few, if any places can match its overall beauty.  It’s easy to imagine Andre Hodgskin’s brainchild, the iPAD, fitting in quite well in the tranquil beauty of the lush New Zealand landscape.

Imagine telling people that you live in an iPAD.  They will think that you are either insane, or simply have a strong accent.  More than likely you will have to clue more than one person in that you said “iPAD” and not “ipod.”  The iPAD is a really clever and fun concept from Auckland, New Zealand. The iPAD should be of interest for tiny house enthusiasts.

New Zealand architect Andre Hodgskin’s concept in the iPAD is to create a very flexible kit home that could be suited for a variety of purposes.  Part of its flexibility is that the iPAD can be built onsite, or it can be built elsewhere.  Because of its cargo container style design, it can be shipped to its final location.  Another aspect of this flexibility is that the iPAD has a great many color options that are available as well.  There are five finishes in all, including black, white and Red Tongue & Groove.  Of all the finishes probably Black and Red Tongue & Groove are the most appealing, but all the designs work very well and succeed in creating a great space that is attractive and livable.

One of the iPAD’s big tricks and part of its brilliance is its use of several large decks that effectively increase the usable living space considerably.  This feature makes the iPAD a good potential fit for warmer climates.  A second great feature of the iPAD is the incorporation of large floor to ceiling windows, which when combined with the decks, really add a feeling of space that is far beyond the iPAD’s 500 square feet.

The entry-level iPAD is about 500 square feet, and the kit can be purchased for around $125,000 New Zealand dollars.  Larger and more complex designs top out at $375,000 NZD.  Considering the cleverness of the sophisticated design and the iPAD’s general charm, the price tag seems very reasonable.

A quick glance at the interiors and use of additional deck space should sell most people on this very clever concept.

Additional information on the iPAD and photos can be found on their website.

Many tiny home builders often consider a variety of materials that are not commonly used in today’s cookie cutter homes.  One material that you are likely to have never heard of is Papercrete.

Papercrete is a combination of what seems like some pretty unlikely elements.  Recycled paper, cement, water and sand are combined to create a material that is surprisingly strong and extremely cheap.  Most environmentalists like Papercrete because it uses recycled paper and sand. However, some also dislike the fact that the material also uses cement.  Many people feel that Papercrete, while an interesting concept, is just not a viable building material.

There are a few developments that might be of interest where the future of the material is concerned.  Econovate is a company that sees all the millions of tons of paper waste as a real building opportunity.  They point to some interesting facts; such as that fifty percent of all paper waste in the UK is actually sent to China for recycling.  This process, of course, creates CO2 due to the transport of the paper waste.  Econovate feels that if there was a way of dealing with all this paper waste around the world that a major reduction in pollution could occur.  Their concept for how to deal with the issue is a pretty brilliant one. The Econovate plan could address both pollution and the global housing shortage.

Papercrete Wall Panels and Papercrete Blocks are two of the ideas that Econovate is currently excited about.  Their concept is to actually create wall panel sections and building blocks using Papercrete.  The hope is that this very environmentally friendly project would be ready by 2011.  The research and development is currently being done in conjunction with the University of Cambridge, and has numerous “heavy weights” helping with the funding.

What is most exciting about Papercrete is that some bright people decided not to give up on this potentially exciting material.  Papercrete is cheap, comparatively eco-friendly, and could help reduce CO2 emissions considerably.  If Econovate and the University of Cambridge are successful, tiny homebuilders might have a very cheap new building material very soon.

Logical Homes takes an approach that is not surprisingly, rather logical.  They are designing homes of various sizes, and clearly one of their goals is to be different.

Logical Homes decided that the way homes are being built just doesn’t make much sense.  Homes have been built basically the same way for decades.  The designs at Logical Homes are very much in keeping with the age in which we live. For example, these homes incorporate recycled and repurposed materials.

While Logical Homes builds homes of all sizes, they have two designs that roughly fall into the tiny home category.  One is the Aegean 640,  a one bedroom and one bathroom house that comes in at 640 square feet.  The look of the home is really striking with a large overhanging porch that has a built in “skylight” to accommodate a tall tree or two.  This single story house cost $270,000, which breaks down to about $156 per square foot.

The Aegean 896,a slightly larger version of the Aegean 640,  costs $298,000, (which breaks down to $172 per square foot.)  The main difference with the Aegean 896 is that it has a second bedroom. Logical Homes has three basic different designs, the Aegean, the Catalan and the Seto.  The size of homes varies tremendously.  The largest model, the Seto comes in at a very spacious 3,580, with five bedrooms, three and half baths, and with a cost of $620,000.

What makes Logical Homes a real interesting contender in the tiny home market is their choice of materials and approach.  They primarily use converted steel cargo containers, which have a wide variety of benefits for would be homeowners.  The steel frame of cargo container is largely immune to terrible things like… mold, rot, termites and pests.  If you really hate bugs, a modular home made out of steel may be a good fit as bugs, generally don’t eat metal.  Because you are replacing brick and wood with metal (in this case steel), Cargo containers also exceed most residential building codes.

Right now Logical Homes are serving California, Nevada and Arizona.  But with a concept this strong, don’t be surprised to see a rapid expansion.

My mother was recently out to visit me in New Mexico.  She’s always wanted to see Taos, so I planned an overnight trip for the two of us while she was here. As fascinated as I am by Mike Reynold’s earthship designs, I decided to book our overnight stay in the Phoenix Earthship, perhaps best described as the Ritz Carlton of earthships.

Considering the place is currently for sale for $1.5 M, the cost of a nightly rental is quite reasonable.  You can rent the smaller West Wing, which consists of a bedroom, bathroom, and sunroom for $100 or the East Wing which includes two bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, central lounge area, and two bedrooms for $150.  The two sides of the house both have access to the atrium which is perhaps the most spectacular feature of the house.  You also have the option of renting the whole place for $250 per night. Even if you were to rent the full place, prices are very reasonable compared to more traditional hotel rooms in the city.  And the Phoenix Earthship is, hands down, far cooler than anything you will find in town.

The Phoenix’s atrium was probably my favorite feature.  It consists of a small jungle’s worth of plants, a pond stocked with Tilapia and turtles, and a small flock of parrots which fly freely about.  The sound of the running water and birdsong was enchanting.  I spent most of my time in the earthship hanging out by the pond watching the bird flutter from rafter to rafter beneath the glass ceiling which was reminscent of England’s Crystal Palace.

I also adored the Chinese-red handmade kitchen cabinets and the curvaceous hand-sculpted bathtub that flooded with colored light when morning sun shone through the bottled wall.   This earthship is also equiped with a large flat-screen tv which hangs over a colorful fireplace replete with fountain.  And, of course, there is high-speed internet throughout the rooms.

I felt very privileged to have had the opportunity to stay in the earthship for the night and even was able to sneak a pick at Michael Reynolds, the architect and creator of earthships, when he came through the atrium in the morning to check in with his work crew.  It felt a little like spying on an eco-friendly version of Willy Wonka issuing his daily orders to a staff of especially hip, dreadlocked oompa loompas.

Below I’ve shared some of the photos I took of the earthship and also a quick video.  Please be forewarned that the video is terrible production quality.  I took the video in a series of snippets on my digital camera.  When I got home and saw the results, I decided it was time to purchase an inexpensive camcorder.  So, hopefully, future video on this site will be significantly less disjointed and blurry.

I decided to go ahead and include the footage in this entry because I thought it gave a good sense of how close to nature you feel in the atrium and how the various spaces in the earthship flowed into one another.  Both of which I appreciate and figured other might, too.

If you haven’t heard about the Woodland Home, and you are a tiny home/sustainable home fan, you’ve been missing out.  This home built in Wales is a very interesting concept indeed.

Built by volunteers for about $5500, this tiny home looks much like something out of The Lord of the Rings films.  The core concept is to build a home using as few processed materials as possible.  To this end, the builders utilized a variety of techniques.  They dug into a hillside and built part of the home in this fashion, the used straw bales for the floors, walls and roof and used lime plaster. 

The choice for lime plaster is a rather interesting one, as lime plaster takes far less energy to manufacture than does cement.  Most people are still unaware the concrete, while very durable, is also very energy intensive to produce.  Most environmentalist consider concrete to be very destructive as a whole for the planet.  The choice to use lime plaster was most certainly a good one in fitting with the Woodland Home theme.

The Woodland Home is packed with other features that would also make environmentalist jump with glee, such as using scrap wood for the floors, skylights in the roof to cut down on electricity bills, as well as solar panels.  The Woodland Home also collects rainwater and has a composite toilet.  In short, this is one very environmentally friendly little house.

The creators of the Woodland Home are very straightforward about how important it is to construct in this fashion whenever possible.  One of the most important reasons that they chose to construct using “organic architecture” was to be as natural as possible, and avoid toxic building materials.  In short, they wanted to build a home that had very little impact on both the environment and their own personal health.

More than likely the Woodland Home is using concepts and features that we are likely to see incorporated into many homes in the future.  Clearly, currently building practices are not sustainable in the long run and homes like the Woodland Home are pointing the way as to what is possible.  In this sense, they are true trailblazers.  You can learn more about this unique tiny house from Simon at www.simondale.net/house.

Some design concepts just speak so well to the times.  This is the case with the modular home concepts dreamed up by the people over at System Design Studio.  The System Design Studio is based in Barcelona Spain, and is really generating some impressive ideas that are worth a keen look.  One the most exciting is their concept for a modular home.

The System Design Studio modular home concept centers around the concept of taking three separate units: bathroom, kitchen and storage, and building a living area around them. Other modules can be attached to this core, thus expanding it.  This is how to add such rooms as a bedroom.  But what makes the design so potentially interesting is how much thought System Design Studio has given to transportation and space maximization of their modular home design concept.  The home’s design to expand from compact module to extended module is truly brilliant.

The compact module compressed the structure down considerably.  It can be transported on a railway, and the compact module can fit onto a train.  When in extended module form the module unfolds considerably, yielding much more living space.  No doubt, this is a great design.  Being able to partially fold up the module for transport is a fantastic concept.  Moreover, if modular homes become the norm in the future, the idea of compressing the space for transport is extremely attractive.  Such functionality could make moving and transporting modules very easy, as modules could be transported via the railways or even as ocean freight.  While their home design is only a concept, it is an exciting one, full of tremendous potential.

Not surprisingly, environmental concerns are a major aspect of System Design Studio’s modular design as well.  Each unit is designed to incorporate solar panels and uses high-efficiency LED lighting.  A system for collecting and using rainwater is also central among the design principles.  The overarching concept is for the home to be very self-sufficient and eco-friendly.

Studio Design also creates a wide variety of sleek lamps created from recycled materials which are currently available.  These designers have an array of interesting eco-friendly design options on their very high-tech looking website.

Check out System Design Studio’s website for more information- this site is definitely worth a look!