User:Edandley/sandbox

Container City
Container City, by Urban Space Management Ltd, is a modular structure created through the use of twenty recycled steel shipping containers. It was built in 2001 and designed by Nicholas Lacey and Partners. It is located at Trinity Buoy Warf in London and took only four days to build. At five stories tall, it contains fifteen units that are used as studios and apartments all at a low cost due to the creative use of recycled materials. Container City is an elegant solution to a social problem in a scientific way.

Qualifications as Structural Art
Structural Art is a feat of structural engineering in which efficiency, economy, and elegance are embodied (the three E’s). At the same time it can be defined through three S’s: scientific, social, and symbolic.

Scientific/Efficient
The creation of Container City was possible through the efficiency of the underlying scientific attributes of these shipping containers. The purpose of this building technique is to create cheap buildings fast. The high strength of steel, with less associated weight than other building materials, allows for strong, light weight structures. This means that foundations can be minimal. Loads are already meant to be carried in stacked shipping containers so the transition is seamless. There is no real need to consider the effect of wind load because it is a relatively short structure. The original, five story, Container City built in 2001 took only four days to construct and consisted of 15 apartments or studios. This is an unprecedented speed at which to construct a building of this size. Methods have improved to allow for the construction of more skeletal structures like those found in the picture below on the left.

Social/Economical
Today the social problems of excessive waste and economic upheaval have caused unrest in the world. By recycling, Container City was been made in a fashion that is incredibly cheap, thus helping to solve both of the aforementioned problems. Because it was prefabricated in a modular form, from what was essentially a waste product, costs were kept low for both materials a man power. This process also cut down on carbon emissions by using mostly recycled materials. Not only was it economical to build but to use as well. Many of the units come with sensitive heating controls, wind turbines, rain water harvesting, and green roofs. This cuts down on the global, negative impact of new construction and daily living. Today, modeled off of the original Container City, there are classrooms, offices, apartments, and youth centers all created in this way.

Symbolic/Elegance
When one thinks of shipping containers, elegance is not the first word associated. The real beauty is in the transformation. Container City is elegant in its simplicity, in its efficient use of materials, and for what it shows of ingenuity today. It is the epitome of reinvention through recycling and what can be done in the name of efficient, green construction. Through the creative use of a material that would not otherwise be used, a funky alternative to expensive, ground up construction has been made. Although this is not yet an official emblem of any country or person, it will undoubtedly soon be a symbol of the cultural movement towards simple solutions to the social problem of waste today through the retooling of preexisting materials.