In this day and age, green construction methods are definitely in style. Architects, home builders, and entrepreneurs are all looking for ways to creatively reuse materials to create new, efficient, and unique buildings. Perhaps the most interesting green architectural movement of the last decade uses a construction material that is as commonplace as it is efficient: shipping containers.
Shipping containers (also called “cargo containers”) make an ideal building material because they are plentiful, weather-proofed, and built to last. With the tons of freight moved every year across the oceans, there is a massive surplus of cargo containers around the world. Both used and new containers can be purchased very inexpensively due to this surplus. And, since they are already built to withstand the rigors of sea travel, they can endure any type of weather in any location.
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Dad was a Master Builder of the old school and known for his quality workmanship. When his teams built a house, it was solid, square and built to last. Before I could follow in his footsteps, the credit squeeze of the 1960’s hit, he closed up shop and we went farming, but I have always been interested in developments in the building industry.
Traditional structures are built with frames of timber or steel, and with materials not as plentiful as they were, framing timbers are not the quality they used to be. I still have friends who are in the building game and one is a plasterboard fixer. These days one of his greatest frustrations is trying to hang plasterboard on frames that are not square and which have warping in the timbers. If the underlying structure is not square and flat, the finishing off cannot look as good as it should. He is often delayed in his work while the framers are called back to square up their work.
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