Posted by Harry
Architecture | 09 Jan 08 | Comments (8) | Stumble
Fabprefab's Michael Sylvester sent us an email to let us know that "past the zillions of giant TVs and MP3 toasters at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, you will find one of the best MoCo items on display. The Olevia stand in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center features a modern shipping container-based home from Logical Homes.". A next-generation prefab on show at CES? - we want to know more. "Unlike the temporary booths favored by most exhibitors, this small footprint home is a fully engineered steel structure that was assembled in a matter of days. The house has modern lines and a long cantilevered roof - you can hardly see that this home is based on the adaptive re-use of two forty foot cargo containers.". Los Angeles-based Logical Homes is launching the new line of container-based prefab shortly and the exhibit at CES represents the first built prototype.
This is great now everybody is able to afford ultra-modern homes made from recycled shipping containers. Peter DeMaria the founder of logical Homes said this "that the 'affordability index' in LA floats around the 15% level. What that means is, only 15% of the people in LA can afford to purchase a home here! What are the other 85% going to do is the question we are hoping to answer with our new company."
I hope he can offer real solutions and this is not just a flash in the pan.
The design is certainly eye-catching.
The rendering on the website provides a nice fantasy look at what the structure could look like out of doors.
Not to state the obvious, but it's land/location that makes LA expensive, not the physical structures. Plus an LA location would likely involve a teardown, creating more waste and expense.
I don't understand why reusing cargo containers is so expensive. I enjoy the end result and understand there are labor costs. But the massive number of unused cargo containers grows daily at the long beach port. I wish we could see someone develop a home from the cargo containers that almost anyone can afford.
Tim: I just viewed a video that detailed quite a bit about how this architect is pursuing exactly what you are referring to - an affordable container house that is made of quality construction and doesn't look like a "junkyard", as DeMaria put it. go to http://gliving.tv/videos/ and scroll down until you see the title Room101 with DeMaria's picture. Enjoy.
gliving video was loaded with info. finally an architect who knows how to build with containers describes some of the pros and cons. another video is on sundancechannel.com - big ideas for a new planet. that was a great video also. people must either love living in containers or they truly are more affordable or who knows what, but it seems like this stuff isn't going away, but picking up momentum.
DeMaria's finally launched the Logical Home business!!!!!!! took way too long
www.logicalhomes.com
super clean container design, I thought, was unattainable