Shipping Container Architecture - Cordell House

I can say that I have some pretty ambitious goals for myself within the next few years. Graduate with my B.S in architecture, graduate early with my M.S in architecture, become LEED certified, complete my IDP hours and become licensed just to name a few. One of the biggest questions I get from people when they learn I'm an architecture major is "What type of architecture do you want to do?" And when I tell them I want to build things with shipping containers they usually look at me like I have five heads. 

Shipping container architecture has gone from a small scale grassroots movement to a much larger platform. While shipping container buildings are hard to find in the northeast, down south they are much more common. More and more architects are being approached by clients to design homes and building made from shipping containers. Why? I believe the main reason is that they cost less, are sustainable and have a modern style to them.  

When I tell most people I want to design with shipping containers they usual say something like "wont they be dark and cold? How do you insulate it? How to do build it out? Won't the inside be ugly?" But I'm going to let the following pictures prove them wrong. Pictured below is the Cordell House in Houston Texas, belonging to Kevin Freeman and Jen Feldman and design by Christopher Robertson. All photographs were taken by Jack Thompson. I originally found an article on Dwell featuring the home with all the photos here.

Still think you can't design with shipping containers? 

Cape Romano Dome Houses

For the longest time many in the state of Florida wondered what these mysterious structures were. Some said aliens, others said maybe a secret cult of sorts. But in reality, this series of structures was the holiday home of Bob Lee and his family. Lee, an independent oil producer from the south loved DIY projects, and designed and built the Cape Romano home in 1980. I may also be as brave to say that the home was well advance for its time, being self sustaining and solar powered. Before being built in Florida, Lee built a prototype on his land in Tennessee. Lee purchased the land in Florida for the Dome Houses to be built on. 

The domes unique design helped protect it from extreme weather. Being elevated off the ground protected them from flood water and the dome design itself helped protect the home from hurricane force wind and rain. During huricane Andrew in 1993 several exterior windows were broken and water and debris did get inside.

After that storm, the Domes were visited less and less by the family and was soon abandoned as stronger storms began to hit the slowly disappearing coastline. A man named John Tosto bought the Domes and 2005, but shortly after hurricane Wilma caused significant damage and further eroded the coastline. 

The only way to save the home would have been to build a protective sea wall, but the EPA and local building code enforcement board ordered the homes taken down. Tosto never removed the homes, and soon the sea filled in around them. Only now accessible by boat, some locals like to fish near the abandoned homes. 

Now just a shell of their former selves, the Cape Romano Dome Houses stand in the water as an architectural marvel. For one man, Bob Lee, was able to create a sustainable home that would be sought after in the world today. The homes watery grave serves as a reminder and a warning that we need to design with sustainability in mind because we never know what the world will look like tomorrow. 

Studio H Design

Its people like Emily Pilloton who inspire and motivate me to become an architect. 

Emily Pilloton is the founder of Project H, a nonprofit design group whose focus is to develop effective design solutions for the people who need them the most. Back in 2009, Project H was contacted by the school superintendent from Bertie County North Carolina to help improve the school system through design. They created a design build curriculum for students called Studio H that began in 2010. This description of studio H comes from the Project H Design website...

"Studio H is an in-school design/build class for 8th-11th grade students. First launched in Bertie County, NC and now based at Realm Charter School in Berkeley, CA, Studio H students apply their core subject learning to design and build audacious and socially transformative projects. Students of Studio H have previously dreamed up, designed, and constructed a 2000-square-foot farmers market pavilion, a pop-up park, laser-etched skateboards, sculptural concrete public furniture, roadside farmstands, and more. Through experimentation, non-stop production, tinkering, and a lot of dirt under their fingernails, students develop the creative capital, critical thinking, and citizenship necessary for their own success and for the future of their communities."

Through Studio H, students designed and built a new classroom space made out of three shipping containers. They designed the classroom to be open with a raised roof to let in ample light. And building it themselves they learned how to use a full array of construction equipment and techniques.  You can watch the TED Talk below that tells the story of Studio H in Bertie NC...

Along with founding Project H, Emily has also written a book called Design Revolution, which features design solutions for the people who need them the most. I hope to one day use my knowledge and skills as an architect to design and give back to people in need. 

Check out Project H's website here

-A

Buildings Made Out of Air

Yes you heard that right. We can make buildings out of air. To an architect or engineer these are pneumatic structures. Thay can stand alone or be inhabited on their interior. The membrane of these types of structures is stabalized through the use of compressed air. Check out some of these awesome structures from around the world!

Inflatable Done

Thomas Herzig, Vienna Austria

The dome is created with inflatable elements that can be assembled in a variety of forms. Zippers act as connectors between them. Herzig envisioned that the dome could be used in a wide range of applications such as emergency housing, semi permanent command centers for crisis organizations, indoor sports etc...
_________________________________________________________________________________

Thirst Pavilion

Cloud 9, Zaragoza Spain 

This pavilion was commissioned for the Expo Zaragoza in 2008. The concept for the design was the molecular structure of a grain of salt. The pavilions membrane is made out of 3 layers of ETFE which block out the intense Spanish heat, making the building climate controlled.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Rubber Duck 

Florentijn Hofman

This giant floating rubber duck knows no bounds and goes where it pleases. He has been spotted in Kaohsiung, Taoyuan, Bejing, Pittsburg, baku, Hong Kong, Sydney, Auckland, Hasselt, Osaka, San Paulo, and many more...
_________________________________________________________________________________

The Eden Project 

Grimshaw Partners, Cornwall UK

The Eden Project is located in an old Kaolinite Pit in the UK. Each dome enclosure emulates a different biome enviorment, enabling it to house plant species from around the would. The domes are created using a hexagonal and pentagonal grid of ETFE cells.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Tea House

Kengo Kuma & Associates, Frankfurt Germany

As a form of living architecture, the tea house "breathes". The architecture inhales and exhales, growing and shriking in size. The double membrane was created using Tenara, allowing it to expand and contract with each breath.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Tokyo Dome 

Tokyo Dome Corporation, Tokyo

The Tokyo Dome is an air supported roof, the flexible structure is held up by the pressurized air within the stadium. The air pressure inside the dome is 0.3% higher than the outside air. This difference is hardly delectable by the human body. 

Tips for Architecture Students: #1-5

I've decided to create a list of tips and tricks that I've learned throughout my years studying architecture. And trust me; I’m known as someone who is always in studio, so I know how to get stuff done. These tips/tricks are in no particular order, just the random order they popped into my head. I’ll try to make this ongoing, so here’s the first 5….

1. Stop Procrastinating

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in studio staring a project or doing other class work, and I’ve seen people procrastinate like they don’t have a care in the world, and then freak the f**k out when they realize they’ve wasted the entire night and this is due tomorrow. They’ll say things like “oh I have plenty of time” “I’ll start after I watch this show” etc. Mostly they just go around studio talking to other people and goofing off. Don’t cause yourself the anxiety of realizing you haven’t done a single thing for the project due tomorrow. Sit down and get to work, you’ll thank yourself later.

2. Take Care of Yourself

You would think that this would be a no brainier, but it can be challenging. Architecture students are known for being able to pull all-nighters to get work done, but this along with other things can prove to be damaging to your health. Don’t forget to eat, shower, brush your teeth, hair etc…Bring a change of clothes if you know you’ll be up late. Have a cut off time. Mine is 6 am. I will work until 6am, go home, shower, eat something and then go to class. Some people claim that they never have and never will pull an all-nighter in studio. Those are the people who don’t care enough about the quality of their work to improve upon it, and think that everything that do is amazing. Don’t trust those people.

3.  Stay organized

This is harder said than done. Especially if you’re in the middle of a huge project and haven’t slept for a few days. But staying organized will help keep you sane and work faster. You don’t want to waste time looking for that one piece of trace you know was here yesterday, or for your pens to complete a drawing. Try and keep everything organized throughout the beginning of the semester so you don’t go crazy towards the end.

4. Bribe yourself

I always bribed myself throughout the semester as a way to get work done. I’ll stay up late to get work done on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night so that I can go out on Thursday of Friday. If the work isn’t done, I don’t go out, simple as that. I also bribe myself with the idea of “if I get it done now, I won’t have to do it later”. I had a few courses where the only assignment would be a lengthy paper due at the end of the semester. I stayed in studio for 3 weekends in a row, day and night, to get these papers done. By getting them done early I was able to get them looked over by the professors and correct any mistakes. I did this because I knew that the end of the semester my studio would be very time consuming, and I didn’t want to have to try and finish my project and write these papers at the same time. It was also funny to see the looks on people faces when that asked how my paper was going and I said I finished it over a month ago.

5.  Invest in a pair of headphones

Trust me when I say this, your little apple ear buds won’t cut it. I almost always listen to music when I’m working in studio, whether it be Pandora, 8Tracks or my iTunes library. I tried using just my ear buds, but they constantly fall out and the cord got tangled on everything. Most people in studio preferred a pair of large over the ear headphones. Why? Nowadays most over ear headphones are noise canceling, which is such a blessing in studio when it gets noisy. Beats is a good brand a lot of people had, but I recommend the Zik headphones. They’re ah-maz-ing. My boyfriend got his pair for Christmas last year and he uses them all the time. They can be wireless, and work with Bluetooth to play music off your smartphone. If you want to skip a song or turn up the volume, swipe your hand by the ear (you don’t even have to touch it!) and you can skip a song or adjust the volume. Someone come over to talk to you, take them off your head and the music automatically stops. Pretty cool huh?

I hope these 5 tips are insightful to you. I’ll keep adding more, maybe once a week. Have any questions or feedback for me? Let me know in the comments!

-A

This is a Shoe

Yes you read that right. This is a shoe.

The Mojito Shoe takes what we think we know about shoes, and throws it out the window. Designed by renowned architect Julian Hakes of the UK, the Mojito Shoe is a design clearly influenced by an architect’s brain. On his website Julian explains how he came up with the idea for the Mojito Shoe.

“One late summer night I was in the studio, thinking about the design of shoes in general. I wondered why there was the need for
a foot plate in high heels. When I look at a foot print in the sand it was clear to me that the main force goes to the heel and ball, even more so in a heeled shoe.

If you were to stand with your heel on a wooden block the foot naturally spans the gap to the floor. If the foot has its own inbuilt strength and support why duplicate this? You would not have a shirt with rigid arms between the elbows and the wrists.

So this raised the question: if the early design of a shoe was an evolution of the humble sandal was this process limited by the materials and technology available? How can new materials and design techniques lead to a new solution, an evolution, possibly a revolution?

So I began exploring these questions in a similar way to how I would design a building or a bridge; examining the load path and looking at the most simple, elegant yet poetic expression of the forces at play within the materials used.

The resulting form was rather like a twist of lime peel and so I named it the ‘Mojito’.

The Mojito is a unique shoe design. It is a single wrapped geometry which starts under the ball of the foot, sweeps over the bridge, then down below the heel before twisting back on itself to provide the support for the heel”.

Julian Hakes

I first saw this shoe on Pinterest and pinned it to my “My Style” boards. At the time I couldn’t find out much information about these shoes, but now it seems to have exploded into the fashion world.  The shoe won the Drapers Footwear and Accessories award in the year 2012. It has been featured in countless fashion magazines, and even on the big screen. Hakes partnered with marvel to create a pair of shoes for Pepper Pots, Iron Man’s leading lady. Gwyneth Paltrow who plays Pepper in the movie also ended up donating a signed pair of White Mojito’s in order to raise money for the Stand Up for Cancer UK foundation.

The Mojito shoe comes in a wide variety of colors, from classic black and nude to vibrant neon hues. These are show stopping statement shoes. Costing around 159.99 British Pounds or roughly $274.57 US Dollars, the shoes are an investment. But these architecturally inspired shoes are quite timeless and elegant, so remember… you only live once, buy the shoes!!!!

You can look at all the currently available styles and prices for the Mojito Shoe on Julian Hakes website here

Mom *cough*santa*cough* if you’re reading this… I’ve been a good girl this year and I really think I deserve a pair of Classic Black and Pewter Mojito’s, size 9 US,7 UK from http://www.cloggs.co.uk/search?q=mojio, They’re on sale J

Block Island Southeast Lighthouse

Southeast Lighthouse on BI, Photo by +Brendon Roderman 

Location: Mohegan Bluffs, Block Island RI

Coordinates: 410910N 713304W

Station Established: 1875

Deactivated: 1990

Relighted: 1994

Tower Height: 52 feet

Focal Plane Height: 261 feet

Last Friday I enjoyed a much needed day off from work and traveled to Block Island with my boyfriend and his family. I had been to Block Island a few times before with friends, but only went as far as Ballard’s Beach. We took the high speed ferry in the morning and arrived a little before 10am. Then we went to Aldo’s and rented Mopeds. The last time I had been on the island we rented bikes, like bicycles. Unless you’re an avid biker, I would splurge and get the moped. BI is very hilly and I don’t think I would have lasted the day on a bicycle.

So we rented mopeds and headed out away from the main part of town to see the sights. The one thing B and I really wanted to see was the Southeast Lighthouse.

BI is surrounded by dangerous shoals and ledges, and many ships were wrecked off its coastline in inclement weather. In 1872 Nicholas Ball, a local BI merchant petitioned for a lighthouse on the southeast coast, saying that the southeast coastline of BI was “exposed to as much danger as at almost any other place on the entire coast of the United States”. Congress listened, and $75,000 was granted to build the lighthouse.

The lighthouse was to serve as an architectural showcase on the island. It melded Italian and gothic revival styles together. The keeper’s house is attached to the tower as a 2 ½ story duplex residence. It is built out of brick with a granite block foundation. The tower itself is topped with a 16 sided cast iron lantern.

One of the most interesting things about the lighthouse is that it was moved to its current location. When it was first built by Mohegan Bluffs, it was around 300 feet away from the edge of the bluff. By 1990 when the lighthouse was deactivated, the bluff had eroded so significantly that the lighthouse was only 55 feet away from the edge. The building was then listed as one of Americas most endangered structures by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Block Island Southeast Lighthouse foundation was able to raise $2 million dollars to save the endangered building. In August of 1993 the historic building was moved to its present location on the island today, around 300 feet away from the bluffs.

When we visited the lighthouse we were able to walk into a small area inside the base of the tower. This is where the spiral stair case up to the top of the tower began. I was disappointed that you had to pay for a “tour” in order to travel up the staircase to the top of the tower. Hopefully next time we travel to BI we’ll book time for a tour. I overhead the gift shop attendant telling another person how the light from the lighthouse is the highest of any along the Atlantic coastline. This is because the 51 foot height tower sits on top of the bluffs that are 210 feet above sea level, giving the light an overall focal plane height of 261 feet.

The southeast lighthouse is a must see for anyone, architecture lover or not, traveling to Block Island. You can get more information about this historic building and site here

-A