‘Cargotecture’ sails into SA’s trendy suburban housing
● A luxury home overlooking the ocean, constructed from seven shipping containers, has become an unlikely attraction for thousands of Capetonians.
But as unusual as it may seem, the home in Glencairn is a sign of things to come as SA joins the global trend of incorporating container homes into middle- and upper-class suburbs.
For owner Stephan Smith and his partner, their overriding priority when they planned the house was environmental. “Since there was a water shortage, we considered the idea of alternative building technologies,” he said.
Containers “use the least amount of water, have minimal impact on the environment, involves upcycling, and meets all the building safety and legal requirements”.
The structure is also fireproof, and on a steep plot the construction method gave them “the opportunity to cost-effectively cantilever the front of the house over massive rocks below”.
The house is an example of “cargotecture” — a word coined by a US architectural firm to describe any building partly or entirely built from recycled containers.
South Africans might be catching on only now, but Smith said there was “already a worldwide uptake on container builds as upmarket dwellings as well as basic housing” when they made the decision.
Alicia Kalil, co-founder of Berman-Kalil Housing Concepts, which specialises in sustainable design, said cargotecture was a growing trend in SA and her company had seen demand rise three-fold since it opened its doors five years ago.
“We have more and more young professionals wanting to build with containers, clients wanting to explore the B&B market, and a rise in student accommodation developments,” said Kalil, adding that people were motivated by lower costs, shorter timelines and the scope for creativity.
Submissions to planning authorities were “exactly the same as when submitting plans for brick and mortar”, and municipalities were increasingly seeing container homes as “rational designs, rather than a steel, movable box”.
According to Perry Miller of Inhabit, an online resource that focuses on sustainable design, the construction industry is having to adapt to pressing environmental needs. Against that backdrop, cargotecture is a growing trend that is “pushing the limits of design”.
“Steel shipping containers have been a key component of global trade for the last 50 years, and now these steel boxes that are around 2.4m wide and around 2.6m high are becoming a recycled building material that you can use to build your own house,” he said.
A downside of cargotecture is that it is sometimes “not as green as you would believe — some people are using brand-new containers instead of recycling old ones, and this completely defeats the purpose”.
There are millions of shipping containers worldwide “just sitting in various ports, as returning empty containers to their original location is extremely costly”, Miller said.
In SA, they have long been upcycled into libraries, clinics, temporary shelters and as student accommodation. But as their popularity grows in middle-class settings, so do people’s perceptions of what is possible.
According to estate agent Jeanne Cowan of Pam Golding Properties, which is marketing Smith’s house for R5.175m, the sight of containers on a mountain slope in Glencairn might once have left neighbours bemused.
Today, though, “containers are increasingly being accepted as a form of durable building material, and are seen as being on a par with brick for longevity”.
Smith and his partner plan to sell the house and “go sailing again, and then build another different design of container home somewhere else”.