4x40ft containers home
| Architect | Danilo Corbas |
| Area | 196 sqm (2100 sqft) |
| Containers | 4x40 ft HC |
| Location | Granja Viana, Cotia, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Year | 2011 |
| Photos | Plínio Dondon |
Residents, who live with comfort in the first Brazilian shipping container home, are the architect Danilo Corbas, his wife and, of course, his dogs and cats.
When visiting his in-laws, who lived on a catamaran in Salvador, the architect Danilo Corbas, founder of the Container Box, had his first insight into alternative homes, assembled with minimal spaces and not bricks and cement.
From then on came various references, such as the European experiences with containers and a conversation with the wife's father, who worked on oil rigs and often slept in such accommodation. The result: The house Danilo would do for him would be in a container, or rather four.
"I was in search of a change of lifestyle, I lived in São Paulo, in the agitation of Vila Madalena, and then I found this land in Granja Viana and only had to negotiate with my wife, who is art director and soon idea!", says the architect who chose to work with the contrast between the tranquility of the region and the industrial style of his new project - the first of its kind in Brazil.
In total, four 40-foot sea containers were used, each one being 12 m long and 2.90 m high. In total the 3 bedroom shipping container home occupies 196 m² of the 860 m² of land. There are two floors in which are distributed three bedrooms, living room, dining room with integrated kitchen, office, three bathrooms, laundry area, covered garage and balconies.
In addition to its innovative character, the project also has a sustainable appeal, since it uses obsolete containers, reusing a material that is difficult to dispose of and saving resources such as sand, brick, cement, water and iron - which consequently reduces the amount of rubble generated by work.
The container house still encourages, at least indirectly, the increase of the green area, since to plant trees around the house and to install a green roof, actions are almost necessary to ameliorate the heat conditions caused by the structure.
With this in mind, the project still takes special care with windows to ensure cross ventilation of the house and decrease the use of air conditioning.
Already when the subject is style and decoration, the 3 bedroom shipping container home asked for an industrial décor and it was not a problem.
According to Danilo, his only regret is not daring more, "today I think we could have used less coating and left more parts of the structure to show," says the architect who developed all the techniques for executing the project from scratch and today is a specialist in which has already finalized about 10 other projects of the type.
Description by the project team.
The structure of the shipping container home consists of four 40-foot High Cube containers (12 m x 2.90 m high)
Located in a land of 860 m2, in a residential condominium in Granja Viana, in Cotia (SP), the shipping container house has 196 m2 of constructed area, distributed in two floors. There are 3 bedroom, living room, dining room and integrated gourmet kitchen, office, three bathrooms, laundry area, covered garage and balconies.
Several ecologically correct resources are foreseen in the project and should generate a significant saving of natural resources and electric energy:
- Reuse of materials for house structure: disused maritime containers. Besides using discarded noble material, the use of container generates savings of natural resources that were not used for the structure of the house, such as sand, brick, cement, water, iron etc. This means a cleaner work, with reduction of debris and other materials.
- Economy in the foundation and reduction in the use of materials. The light weight of the metal structure allowed the use of light foundation, small and shallow.
- Preservation of trees on the ground and landscape design to help shade the building and minimize excessive heat.
- Reuse of rainwater. It will be captured by the roof, stored and filtered in its own reservoir, for use in garden irrigation, external cleaning, car washing and washing machine.
- Cross ventilation. Windows and openings will be used to avoid the use of air conditioning, one of the major consumers of electricity.
- Green roof. Part of the cover will have vegetation to aid in the thermal insulation of the container.
- Polyurethane sandwich panels, for better thermal performance of the house; in white color to reflect the solar rays and contribute to the temperature decrease of the local microclimate.
- Energy efficiency: use of lighting in LEDs.
- Avoiding waste. Metals manufactured by Roca with flow limiters and water temperature, which prevents waste by up to 50%.
- Use of PET insulation, thermal insulation made from PET bottles, from Trisoft, which received the "Planeta Casa 2010" award in the building materials category.
- Eco-friendly paint: water-based paint, unscented, manufactured by Sherwin-Williams, with low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds).
