This particular shipping container home has a place in history as being the first one completed in Ireland in just three days. It was built over a weekend, then put on display at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and was afterwards to be donated to St Vincent de Paul.
The plans for this house now are to move to Deerpark in Co Cork to house a family in time for Christmas.
Labor and materials were donated by a lot of people — as many as 60 construction-related suppliers pitched in.
The shipping container home is based on a a 40 foot long, 10 foot wide bin.
Speaking about the project, Carol Tallon, who worked with Derek Trenaman, both of Ceardean Architects said:
“A low cost model of housing was inevitable after the property market crash, and this container project shows that there are new housing solutions available to accommodate different lifestyle choices for Irish people.”
Some people were wondering about the insulation factor for one of these shipping container homes. According to a fellow named Pól Mag Shamhrain, “I did a couple of design projects in college using containers. If you wrap the outside of the container all around with insulation or on the inside, then it takes out the thermal bridging which would make it cold or warm. It also stops all that dripping that might go on in winter.
“In this case it was put to the outside which is nice. I’d love to spend a day or two living in it!!”
Shamhrain also commented about the time frame of this project though: :If an architect and others in the design team were doing a large scale housing project it could take a year or two just to design,plan and construct the end product. A lot more work went into this small project that 3 days I would imagine. Multiply it by 20, 30 or 40 times and the complexity and time taken to design and adhere to regulations goes up significantly. Say you started a commission for a large scale project tomorrow the availability of these containers as raw material might be more expensive, especially if demand for them spikes in the construction industry like it currently has been and if there was a spike in consumer demand also. To think that the cost of these things will stay flat like you seem to believe is disingenuous to say the least.:
These homes are also being put forward as a solution to houseing: Scipio Africanus: “It looks clean modern and comfortable. If the govenment was serious about tackling the housing problem it would be promoting innovative ideas like this rather then parceling of land to American property developers, who will build private housing for Chinese business men to speculate on.”
Economicopoly agreed: “Absolutely. The “housing crisis” in Ireland has very obvious solutions none of which accord with the interest of global finance so instead our elected govt treat land in Ireland in such a way as is best accorded with international investors return prospects. Of course its not just govt but armies of Irish “professionals” lining up to do their bidding as well. Decent modern train service so that you can be in Dublin City Centre within 40 mins from Navan, Mullingar, Naas etc and a person on the average family can buy an affordable decently sized family home and still be within a manageable commute to the city centre. Instead its endless academic argument over green field site locations and density ratios to mask the real politik of orchestrating our land to deliver the maximum return for financial investors. They shite on about problems with commercial space in Dublin , one 40 storey building would put an end to that in one project, its all about restricting supply to drive asset yields up for the establishment in Ireland FG has always traditionally served best.”
