Housing the Next Generation with Old Shipping Containers

If the predictions are accurate, America will have to house some 100 million more people by 2040 to mid-century than is now the case. Despite the current round of foreclosures and rising apartment vacancy, over the long term the demand for humane, affordable, sustainable housing is going to escalate dramatically in the coming years.

In this recessionary time, it may be tempting to ignore the coming boost in housing demand. Yet eventually growth will pick up and the housing market will become re-invigorated. Nonetheless, the problem of meeting the demand for affordable housing will remain. For now, the federal government is trying to help state and local governments acquire, renovate and sell foreclosed properties, and individual homeowners to reduce their mortgage payments to 31 percent of their income. Federal efforts are also being aimed at increasing funds to redevelop public housing and at giving first-time homebuyers an $8,000 tax credit.

But these are short-term measures. Others, with more lasting impact, may be more effective. One will be the size of houses. Although some may still choose to build large lot homes and McMansions, the longer-term trend will be for somewhat more compact houses. Contrary to the visions of some urban boosters, Americans will continue to favor single family homes over apartments. But these houses seem likely to trend back to the more traditional, modest scale. Between 2006 and 2007, after years of expanding, the size of a median single-family house actually decreased slightly.

Another critical element of a housing solution lies in building workforce housing close to the workplace. For years, many moderate income Americans have been forced to “drive ‘til they qualify.” Throughout the nation’s metropolitan areas, teachers, police officers, firefighters, salesclerks, municipal workers, and young people, among others, are being elbowed out of the local housing market. In a recent survey conducted by the Urban Land Institute in cooperation with Harris interactive, of the 110 larger firms (over 100 employees) surveyed, fifty-five percent reported a lack of affordable housing nearby, sixty-seven percent of the workers interviewed (who earned less than $50,000 per year) said they would move closer to work if more housing in their price range were available, and fifty-eight percent of the companies reported having lost employees due in part to long commute times.

For most Americans, particularly between ages 30 and 70, the demand for affordable homes near workplaces will be paramount. In some areas, there may also be greater demand for apartments, even though these too are suffering due to the recession.

Many zoning and building codes are obsolete and need to be updated, because as written they restrict the construction of low and moderate income housing and segregate residential, retail, and industrial/commercial land uses. Changing zoning to permit and provide incentives for mixed use development, more intense land uses, and higher density development would make workforce housing more affordable.

The steps above do not apply only to city living. Through good design, suburban living can be made slightly more compact without sacrificing quality of life. Accessory buildings can often be added on a lot, “granny flats” can be built, large old single family homes can be converted into duplexes, empty spaces could be filled in, and other steps can be taken to meet the need for more housing when that need materializes.

But perhaps the biggest gains can come by using innovative approaches to expanding housing. One novel idea that has begun to emerge is to use old shipping containers that have been transformed into building blocks for home-building materials. Actually, one can hardly call the idea novel, because shipping crates have been used in construction for thousands of years. But today, the old practice is being revived with entrepreneurial, innovative, outside-the-box thinking.

These reconfigured containers have the advantages of being more economical and durable than conventional materials, speedier to construct, highly customizable, fire-, termite-, water-, and earthquake/hurricane-resistant, strong, safe and green, with a lower carbon footprint. Hence the name of one of the companies working in this field, one with which I am associated, SG Blocks LLC (SG stands for “safe and green”). As the company puts it, “We are in the business of converting instruments of trade into instruments of construction.”

Shipping containers are big: each weighs 9,000 pounds and measures 8 feet wide by 40 feet long by 9 feet tall. Hundreds and thousands of them are sitting empty in ports around the country. What possible use could they be, one may wonder, in building a new residential or office complex?

Consider, therefore, that these steel-on-steel containers, when used as re-fabricated “blocks,” are stronger than conventional house framing. They can be cut, fabricated, re-modeled, and turned into a basic home structure for approximately $25-$27 a square foot. Stevan Armstrong, COO of SG Blocks, has pointed out that multi-family mid-rise units built with containers cost 10 to 15 percent less than typical “stick frame” houses. When appropriate coatings are installed, says Dan Rosenthal, a principal with the Lawrence Group, “we have an envelope that reflects about 95 percent of outside radiation, resists the loss of interior heat, provides an excellent air infiltration barrier and does not allow water to migrate in. Because of the superior roof structure, it is easier to incorporate ‘green’ roof systems.”

Using shipping containers also saves energy on the front end. It takes 6,481 kilowatt-hours to make a ton of steel from virgin materials, 9,000 kilowatt hours of energy to melt down a container, but only 400 kilowatt-hours of energy to convert shipping containers into SG Blocks.

The possibilities for utilizing this type of construction – infill housing in urban and suburban communities, new construction for residential, commercial, industrial and retail buildings, single- and multi-family homes – are practically limitless. From a design perspective, SG Blocks claims that their modified containers “can be used to build virtually any style of construction, from traditional to modern and all in between...from traditional Main Street to ultra-contemporary.” In short, they can provide people with an opportunity for ownership and economic mobility in a decent community environment.

To cite a few examples:

Demography is destiny, as has been said so many times. With 100 million more people in the pipeline, we have to find humane, innovative, affordable ways to house them and provide them with opportunity for advancement. Salvaging empty shipping containers to address this problem is only one step, but a most interesting one that is well worth the trying.

William H. Hudnut III, former Member of Congress and sixteen-year Mayor of Indianapolis, is the principal in his firm, Bill Hudnut Consultants LLC, and an associate of SG Blocks LLC. His email address is: bhudnut3@gmail.com.