Shipping container chic
HOUSING: Metal hulks being converted to new units
They were once rusting hulks relegated to junk yards. Now shipping containers are being repurposed into stylish homes developers plan to roll out in housing-crunched communities across Canada.
A three-storey development in Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood uses 12 of the millions of containers decommissioned after a life on the sea of five to 10 years. What started as a pilot project on the Downtown Eastside is expanding in the city — and the same model is set to be stacked up in aboriginal communities in B.C., Alberta and Nunavut.
Marnie Crassweller lives in a “studio” container: a 285-square-foot suite home with an ocean view, in-suite washer-dryer, kitchen and private bathroom.
“I find it to be a beautiful suite,” she said, gesturing to her home.
Janice Abbott, CEO of social housing agency Atira Property Management Inc., described container construction as “building with Lego blocks,” saying it’s a fast, environmentally friendly and presumably a cheaper way to build homes.
“You have to think of them as exoskeletons or substructures,” said Abbott.
Abbott said the containers are built with high-grade steel and can be fused together to create multi-bedroom suites.
The project, completed in 2013, was Canada’s first development of recycled shipping containers, and the spaces are so in-demand a second complex is being planned a few blocks away.
Gordon Price, a civic issues expert and former Vancouver councillor who now directs the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said he’s skeptical of the benefits.
Price said he can’t see the savings being significant enough to make it worthwhile because there are many other key expenses, particularly land costs.
“It’s certainly not a revolutionary solution,” he said.