Phone
(678) 225-4900Right now we are in the exploratory phase with a potential client for one shipping container house, possibly followed by others in the future. While it is too early to say if this project is a go, I thought it might be of interest to keep everyone up one the design process and how we are going about it.
7-31-08
This past weekend we met on the potential jobsite, which is in a former industrial area in Atlanta. The site has some old houses that were built for cotton mill employees, and they are beyond repair. The other area of the site is vacant. It's a fairly level site, so construction will be pretty easy from a site work standpoint.
Today we went to Container Technology in Morrow, GA to look at shipping containers. The group consisted of the owner, architect, builder, a landscape architect,, and myself (the structural engineer). Of particular interest to us all was a 48 foot long container. The "standard" container is 40' long by 8' by 8'. The 48 foot container is of course longer, but it is 8 1/2' wide, and most important - 9 1/2' tall. That gives us room for an 8' ceiling and plumbing, HVAC, and insulation above it.
Here's a photo:
I also have some pictures of the inside:
You should be able to see that the bottom is a marine plywood - it's treated with a pesticide, and the smell is rather strong. That plywood is going to come out in the finished house. Can you imagine the potential for lawsuits? You get somebody go in there with an allergy problem, and we'd be in court for years battling junk science as a parade of "experts" claimed it was the chemical vapors from the plywood.
I took a picture underneath so I could have an idea of what was there:
You can see the cross members, which are of importance to me in analysis.
Now, the big hassle for me as a structural engineer is that there is no "standard" container design. The ISO standard is a performance standard, which gives the loads the container must take. Each manufacturer builds a slightly different container, and I haven't found any publicly available plans.
What I did is measured the different structural elements, and I built a model using standard English unit members that are slightly smaller than the elements in the container. When we modify the container, we'll be using standard English measurement steel sections (at least here in the US), Metric sections are hard to come by. It's not that mixing English and Metric steel will cause an explosion or anything like that. Using this, I built my first go at a model in Bentley RAM Advanse. Here it is:
The side panels are modeled using shells out of steel. Unfortunately, I can't model the corrugations in the panels very easily. I suspect it doesn't matter, intuitively I think the container by itself will be far in excess of what I need for strength.
I'll keep the site updated as we move along. We don't have a "go" yet on this project, but the information gathered here is useful for the next job. Feel free to e-mail me your questions and comments.
8-11-08
We've had another meeting on this project, and I've referred the owner, Rebox Green, to a civil engineer At this point we are going to have a concept plan done so an idea of the cost can be generated. The site is located at 805 Hollowell Parkway NW, Atlanta, GA:
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We'll be building back from Hollowell Parkway in the vacant area on the west side of English Avenue. The early concept is for a 32 container buildng, where there are two sections of 8 containers stacked two high, with a common area between the sections. It will be a dormitory facility for young people that are receiving psychiatric care. On Hollowell Parkway there will be an administrative facility which is still in planning. We are early, early, in the project, so everything is subject to change. We're not sketching on envelopes (we're using lined paper), but it's close.
This
is the concept as it stands now - see, I'm not kidding about how
early we are in the project.8-16-08
We are now waiting for the topo survey of the property so we can get a decent concept plan. From there, we can get going into funding and design.
9-10-08
The client is going through some hassles purchasing the property, so right now things are in a holding pattern. However, we're looking at more simple project now elsewhere in the city.
10-19-08
I met with the client today, we'll be doing the Union Building on Hollowell Parkway first. I'm putting together the proposal this week, and I expect the contract to be signed pretty quickly, and design to start. The building will be three stories, 9-10 containers per story (depending on what we can fit on the lot). We are considering a green roof, although I have to examine the cost of that.
11-13-08
Unfortunately, there are problems getting the loan for the project, so it is on hold for 9 months to a year. Unfortunately, that has happened with a lot of projects in the past few months.
George