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Rose Mandungu dreamed of renting a houseboat on an Amsterdam canal when she started university. The only place she could find was a converted shipping container.
''I'm looking for a better place,'' said the criminology student, who last year moved into one of 380 steel boxes stacked around a shipyard crawling with rats and cockroaches.
Mandungu, 20, probably won't be able to leave Amsterdam's first container village anytime soon. Close to 150 home seekers chase every 100 houses offered for rent, according to the Dutch Housing Ministry.
Struggling to cope with demand for housing, Amsterdam is moving students and welfare recipients into shipping containers and turning cruise ships into dormitories. The city's latest ploy -- converting empty offices into apartments -- may fail as developers balk at expensive remodeling amid rent controls that will limit their returns.
''We have our hands full trying to address the housing problem,'' said Pieter van Geel, state secretary for housing, planning and the environment. ``There is a big shortage of housing, and at the same time a resistance to rent liberalization.''
The Dutch don't want to hear about more delays, as waiting lists lengthen and people flood into the city's three container towns. Around 2,500 people now live in the containers, which are about 258 square feet, are stacked three-high and go for about 340 ($445) a month.
The housing shortage springs partly from the city's physical limits. Amsterdam, home to about 750,000 people, was mostly built more than 700 years ago when settlers dammed the Amstel river and filled in land, creating the canals that still ring the city center. Today, Amsterdam is about 25 percent water.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey does not know what to do with Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport. At the end of November, the organization will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to see what developers may have in mind for the landmark. “It is really wide open,” said Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco. “We are leaving it to the imaginations of the developers who respond to the RFP. It could be a destination resort, a spa, an aviation museum. There are 10,000 square feet that could be offices—the possibilities are endless.” DiFulco noted that developers will be asked to assemble a team of experts that can assure that the building will be refurbished and operated in a sustainable manner, but was hesitant to spell out specific details.
Currently, the dynamic structure sits dark as the construction of JetBlue Airway’s Terminal 5, designed by Gensler, with some interiors by the Rockwell Group, progresses behind it. Although the building’s future use is still unclear, the RFP at least eliminates one previous fate. JetBlue had proposed using the Saarinen building as a gateway to its new terminal. While the airline will install a couple of check-in kiosks in the old terminal’s main hall, the building won’t be a part of its operations; Beyer Blinder Belle surveyed and documented the terminal for the Port Authority, but is not heading the restoration.
Beijing Olympic Stadium : Sneak Peek
im not from california, but i did play wipe-out on my desk. didnt you?
bozo under the sea
finally researched this album after siting it for years as the obvious inspiration for the b52s rock lobster. "there goes a jelly fish, there goes a sting ray." they got that here!
this 20' over 40' (junkyard?) arrangement (found by luis) achieves the general format i would like to pursue . only missing are the six 4x8' ceiling to floor window/doors i would use.
