and most importantly it came in at 15K. good work that!
- bill 4-15-2008 4:03 am [add a comment]

a single 20' container container in so-so shape could run you $800.00. thats $5 pr square foot. add in transport depending on how deep into the woods you are would be another $100-$200. add the footers, some welding, some carpentry and metal and wood materials doing most of their own work and pretty soon your up to $15k and still are not insulated, plumbed inside or electrified. it looks like this project makes about 480 sf foot print not including the sleeping loft. so thats about $31.25 sf.

if you go back and check the comments we find an interesting exchange between GL and a fellow named scott from scandinavia.

Posted by: Scott - 04/15/2008

IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT! (not that it needs to be, it is a shack afterall - but come on, you can see that the walls, floor and roof of the container are bare metal- they say they “will” insulate it, it currently is a metal box … but that is OK - it is a deer camp.

I think however that they won’t insulate it they predict, will be too busy regretting the use of the IBU’s and they will eventually have to roof over them and build a roof wall intersection that doesn’t hold water the way that one does.

These are brave people, but the ideological drive to make buildings out of IBU’s causes good men to do foolish things. Let us pray … to the pitched roof … please bow your heads:

Oh rafter, hallowed be thy incline
and deliver us from level
As we want to shed thy water
and allow us to think of your power
as we consider the specific gravity
the hydrogen bonds, freeze and thaw
and capilary action
for ever and ever.

Amen.

Author: Paul
Date Posted: 25 Jan 2008 08:25 AM (GMT -06:00)

We have not figured out what we are doing with the floors yet. We may cover them or we may sand them? We will be insulating them, far too cold up here not to. We will fur out the walls and use rigid foam then cover with birch ply… That is the plan, at least for now… Thanks for the kind thoughts…

Posted by: Scott - 04/15/2008

I wonder why the guys just didn’t build the upper ’storey’ all the way out to the ends (or nearly so) and create two lofts instead of one….. thus not having to deal with covering the sections of roof that will trap water?

If I haven’t outed myself as “anti” container … let me formally do so. The reason they didn’t do what you suggest is because the whole point of the IBU movement is to “express the IBUness” of the whole thing.

please see here for the hight of this silliness:

http://www.lempriere.perpetual.com.au/finalist_view.asp?finalistId=152

well, well, well … if that don’t beat all, sensitivity over the term SHACK on a building made of used, rusting, and off lease “containers” .

The irony is rich of course, because the decision to, not only USE, but to EXPRESS the IBU as an architectural element is to play with this icon of commerce in the first place. That was Kalkin’s whole ironic (some, like me, would say moronic) point To take something that is essentially scrap, and re-purpose it - in an overt way so as to “say something” about … well see Kalkin ad nauseum for this.

There are all kinds of “associations” that go with the IBU - but chief among them is that - they bear the stamp of LOW origins as detritus of international commerce. By adopting them and placing them in a sophistocated design within context of international style, all kinds of references and irony can be called up … newsflash, none of this should be taken seriously. It is all just post modernist “irony” … to be torn down one day by it future owners for failing to be … durable or interesting.

It is of course the working of the IBU into something much more sophiticated that its allure comes - but even Kalkin had to roof the damned things over. For this he just stuck the containers INSIDE a butler building, draped some curtians, got some garage doors etc … everything actually built protected from the weather by something that would shed water.

No, my friends, you have made a “shack” which will have endless “issues” with the configuration of the IBU’s and the wall and the snow, ice, wind rain, sleet, dew, damp, fog and … all of the creeping and crawling things that do dwelleth here on planet earth. That little puddle on the roof just might be trying to be ironic …

(by the way, I think you did a great job - how did you flash the roof wall intersection???

Justin:

I said plenty of constuctive things - and even some positive ones … heck, I even asked the same thing LaVardera asked …

Greg and I are both looking forward to the day that modern design is accepted and acceptable in the USA - for that to happen though we have to work though some issues related to the complicity that modernism has on the degradation of the civic realm.

There is perhaps no more degrading message than, “you should live in a shipping container” (or a building that references a shipping container) - especially since the container is also an accessory to modern day slave trafficing, the desperate attempts of desperate people to attain oppourtunity etc … I can think of no lower and more demeaning architectural endeavor than the IBU building. Furthermore the shipping container is almost 100% recyclable - at the end of its life shipping containers can be fed into a mini mill and made into something useful.

The antidote to rampant consumerism to borrow from the language of DeMaria and Adam Kalkin, is not “irony” through architecture - it is good buildings that honor the people and places in which they dwell. Good buildings are ones that are built with integrity, good materials and good design. We can and should aim higher than to indulge this mocking form of architecture which degrades its users and degrades the meaning and tradition of buildings.

I’m sorry if I wasn’t around when this caught fire on the Dwell site, I would have brought my buckets of cold water there then too. I suspect that I would have been told to not say anything unless I had something nice to say” …

Lovers of buildings and lovers of design (as we all here are) - should not say “nothing at all” when we see bad ideas and bad work that lead to the degradation of the civic realm, we’ve done that too long, and it has had terrible effects on the world - a vital part of what LaVardera calls the ” re modern” must be a repudiation of the aspects of modern that are degrading to the dignity of civilization.

Of course since this is a deer camp in the woods - which is the perfect place to do something like this, but in our admiration of this, lets not forget that the entire notion of using IBU’s in buildings and as buildings is based on a horribly flawed and deeply destructive vein of the worst kind of architectural theory.

It can and DOES get forgotten and we have the spectacle of good men doing bad things because of it.

If these comments come across as adhominem - or personally insulting to ANYONE - they are not intended to - they are sincere and reasoned statements intended to be positive and constructive. Sincerely,

Scott

Posted by: lavardera - 04/17/2008 Scott, simply said the interpretation of containers as degrading is baggage that one brings to the table. No denying that some people are going to see it that way, but that is no reason to shy away from the endeavor. If it was, then there would be no use in pursuing modern design at all - throw in the towel as soon as somebody comes with cold water. Justin and I amoung others have hashed out these arguments before going way back to the original Dwell message boards, and the early days of FabPreFab. Its all water under the bridge now since people are building it, and people are buying it.

Come on Greg, those are low blows. Are you seriously proposing to argue that the container does not have clear associations and at least some broadly and agreed “meaning” within the context of architecture? If you are going to claim that it is just my subjective “baggage” that underpins my argument that expressing containers as buildings is degrading to the dignity of humans … well we can agree to disagree - there isn’t much point of a dialog, since nothing can really be said to mean anything.

I admire you a great deal, and know you to be anything but insincere, and more than once I’ve benefitted from your insights - and think you are an outstanding person and an independant thinker and a talented designer.

I’ll consider that the idea of a container might be something other than what Kalkin et al. say it is, and that perhaps I should look at this differently, if you will consider that the container IS exactly what Kalkin says it is: an icon of commodity that can be juxtaposed with outrageous luxury, status, and money in a way that draws attention in the worst kinds of ways that have nothing to do with building good buildings, making good places or honoring the dignity of home and place. It is, in the end, a “fad” that has shock value.

That it gets taken up by well meaning people and actually proposed as a way to build real domitories, for instance, for real students - it the real horror.

This popularity you cite - is NOTHING to trumpet - especially in light of your passion (which I share) to bring modern architecture into a better relationship with the built environment. The reason I say this is that it is that Kalkin is exalted by the design elitie’s as art (with commentary) BECAUSE his work is so insulting, jarring and downright demeaning.

It is like calling a pig feutus in urine - art.

We’ve seen all this before, and frankly to be anything other than dismissive of it, is to be victimized by it.

a quote from the NYT
Houses fashioned from shipping containers are hardly new, as Mr. Kalkin readily admits. A wave of prototypes has been produced over the last few years by architects like Jennifer Siegal and design firms like LOT-EK. … “I’m not into the container per se,” Mr. Kalkin said. “It’s what I can do with it emotionally; transforming a commodity into poetry.”

So Paul, why is it “destructive” - it is destructive because it is all about irony and mocking, about taking a thing that is “a commodity” and simply juxtaposing it with something that takes great skill and work - in order to be “shocking” and confusing.

The whole thing is an elaborate performance, you are just part of it.

Greg, I’ve shared my thoughts with you on why modern design is so mainstream in Sweden - and these thoughts are a work in progress - but I’ll say that it is because the work that is mainstream makes a sincere attempt to honor people and places - not mock them.

Paul - I think your camp is interesting and the PERFECT place to do what you did - of course the containers are cheap, bullet proof storage - I’ve used them many times on jobsites -

Final note - container like temporary buildings are very common in scandinavia - but they do not make them out of IBU’s - they don’t work well as places to live in.

Regards,

Scott

Posted by: lavardera - 04/18/2008

Scott, I can assure you that I don’t see it as demeaning. I don’t buy into that mindset even though its clearly the intention of Kalkin - that’s his perogative to consider it that way, and I do believe that the way he uses containers reinforces it. His use from the start has been technically weak - he has not had a genuine strategy to use these as a building system, compared to the rational of say Wes Jone’s propoosed system. LoTek falls somewhere in between - I see their commentary more self serving, commenting on “design” more so than social conditions in Kalkins pieces. This is the same kind of situations discussed by Davies in his book about the pitfalls of architects and design.

None of this precludes the use of containers in a positive way to build architecture. Again, if containers are demeaning because they have been used to smuggle illegal aliens, then that rational can be extended to claim all modern architecture is demeaning because it was based on an inhumane industrial vernachular that exploited factory workers during the industrial revolution. I’m just telling you its a weak basis for building an argument.

For me I see it as a clever and efficient building method. I like the fact that it consists of a sizable reuse of a large industrial artifact - the benefits of that over grinding these up as you suggest are sizable. Ask David Cross from SG Blocks - he’s calculated the energy value. So for me its optimistic and progressive, and nothing could be more uplifting than that. A container is not without is signifying value (in a Learning from Las Vegas way) - having a house that is overtly composed from containers will send messages beyond whether or not its designers intention was ironic. People like me will like what they see, and other will not. Again, thats baggage we all bring to the table. Assuming its universal is just a wrong assumption.