ARCH716 Assignment - Creating a Climate Sensitive Single Person Home from a Shipping Container
Introduction
When Malcolm McLean developed the shipping container in the 1950s, he revolutionized the transport industry. There are somewhere between 23 to 38.5 million ‘in-service’ containers being used around the world. Approximately 97% of all shipping containers are manufactured in China. The active life of a container is around ten years, after which they can be used for other functions.
In 1987, Philip C. Clark filed for a US patent for his “method for converting one or more steel shipping containers into a habitable building” . The use of recycled shipping containers to provide temporary or permanent dwellings has increased greatly in recent years in response to, for example, the need for emergency shelter or to meet housing demand. Container City in London or Box City in Dubai are examples of this type of development, and other examples can be found all over the world. The main benefits of container housing include their cost, speed of construction and sustainable recycling of a steel product. The main disadvantages include toxicity issues, lack of flexibility in design and poor control of the internal environment. It is this last issue which is the key consideration in this assignment, as you try and design a climate sensitive, energy efficient and thermally comfortable container home.
Aims and Objectives
The main aim of this assignment is to enhance your understanding of the positive and negative impacts that climate can make on the process of building design and construction. This will be achieved through a series of short sketch design exercises. This should allow you to explore not only environmental and technical issues but also allow you to add some personal and aesthetic features.
Brief
The task in this assignment is to develop and design four portable, climate sensitive dwellings from a standard shipping container. The dwellings will be occupied by a Master’s student. The site for the dwelling would be in a park or field (i.e. an open location) and you should try to imagine the site could be in each of the four climatic zones (cold, temperate, warm humid, hot-dry) discussed in the ARCH716 module. The portable dwellings are to be developed to sketch design level for each climate – in each case the dwelling should provide protection from any adverse climate/weather features and utilise the positive climatic aspects wherever possible. The aim should be to enhance the comfort and amenity of the occupant of the dwelling.
You should try and make the dwellings as self-sufficient as possible for power, heating, cooling, lighting or other services. Try and make use of the climate, site features, passive design features (such as insulation and thermal mass) and low or zero carbon technologies. The dwellings should be fully sensitive to how the prevailing climate and surrounding site can be used to enhance the microclimate in each case.
In order to provide some basis for starting the exercise and to reduce the effort required, the initial building form that you are to work with is a metal skinned transport container such as those used on large articulated trucks and for sea transport. Its internal dimensions are approximately 12 metres long, 2.4 metres wide and 2.4 metres high. You may add to, or open
out the basic structure, or raise or lower the container on each site as you see fit.
Requirements
You will submit your design electronically. You should produce four sketch designs on four A3 sheets in a landscape format – one for each climate. The drawings must be legible and clear, and should convey your ideas. They should be suitably annotated to explain the operation and function of the features you apply to the container. Your submission should show clearly:
● The location and climate at each site including the features of the climate
● The position of the dwelling on each site to make use of microclimate site benefits
● The passive approaches you have used that are climatically sensitive
● The way you have planned to make the container dwellings as off grid as possible
● The role that the use of low and zero carbon technologies have in the designs
You do not have to do any computer thermal modelling of the containers’ performance, but you should use Climate Consultant for your weather data. There will be a series of individual and group tutorials to advise you on your scheme.
Assessment Guidelines
The submissions should clearly provide answers to the problem set – the expectation is that the drawings will illustrate the main functioning and operation of the building and the variations in design that are required as a result of the climatic differences. The drawings should be accompanied by sufficient text/annotation to explain the solutions, but do not use lots of text – no more than 40% of the poster should be text.
Good submissions will
● Display clearly the climatic data and comfort considerations for each site
● Exhibit good design quality in terms of development of the basic design and additional climate sensitive features
● Demonstrate the ability to assess and evaluate the critical design features required for each site and climate
● Use and apply appropriate understanding, knowledge and techniques acquired during the ARCH716 module
● Demonstrate the ability to present and communicate the work in an understandable yet concise manner