Container House and Air Brick

There is no direct connection between container houses and air bricks. A container house is a type of building that is transformed from a steel shipping container as its basic module. The following provides a popular science introduction to container houses from aspects such as development history, application scenarios, and design features:

Development History

Container architecture has a development history of only 20 years and has only widely entered the public eye in the past decade. In the 1970s, British architect Nicholas Lacey proposed transforming containers into habitable buildings, but this did not receive widespread attention. In November 1987, American architect Phillip Clark proposed a technical patent for transforming steel shipping containers into buildings, and the patent was approved in August 1989. Since then, container architecture has gradually emerged. In the early days, due to crude technology, it was difficult to meet national building codes. Moreover, as temporary buildings with short lifespans, they needed to be demolished or relocated upon expiration, and their functions were mostly limited to office use or exhibition halls. In 2006, American architect Peter DeMaria in Southern California designed the first two-story container house in the United States, and its building structure passed strict national building codes. In 2011, the world's first large-scale temporary shopping center, the container park BOXPARK, was launched, indicating that container architecture technology was beginning to mature.

Application Scenarios

Nowadays, the trend of using containers to manufacture structures is on the rise, and container buildings can be seen in almost every country in the world. They are suitable for places where materials are not easily moved and can form unique solutions. For example, in a project in Taiwan, a container house was built on the ruins of an old brick house, integrating the old building with modern container architecture.

Design Features

Taking the container house project in Taiwan as an example, the house is built with five containers (4 x 40-foot and 1 x 20-foot) and has a three-story structure. To preserve the old structure on the ground floor, an open-plan design was implemented, and steel rods were placed on the upper floors to handle the containers. The internal space layout is reasonable. On the first floor, three 40-foot containers are used, and on the second floor, one 40-foot container and one 20-foot container are used, creating a living space with a living room, kitchen, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, agricultural storage space, and a cleaning area. The first floor has an open design with a 20-foot shipping container used for storing equipment. The large windows in the living room fill the room with sunlight and provide a small balcony. The second floor has two rooms and a large terrace. The glass windows are sliding and easy to move, allowing residents to enjoy the outdoor natural scenery at any time.