Container House with Brick

Common practices for adding bricks to container houses include building brick foundations at the bottom, integrating them with the ruins of old brick houses, or combining container and brick structures to form a composite building system in some cases.

I. Brick Foundation at the Bottom

In humid areas, the direct contact of the container bottom with moist soil can lead to erosion, affecting the structural durability. A common solution is to build a brick foundation beneath the container. For example, in a “Z”-shaped container residential project, a basement and first-floor foundation were constructed using bricks, with eight containers arranged in a staggered manner on top of the foundation. This design not only prevents direct contact between the steel container and the soil but also enhances overall seismic performance through the stability of the brick structure. The height of the foundation is usually adjusted according to geological conditions. For instance, in areas with a seismic design intensity of 7 degrees, such as Yiqi, the brick foundation can form a dual seismic system with the “wedge lock + high-strength bolt” connection nodes of the container.

II. Integration with Old Brick Houses

Some projects adopt a method of integrating containers with existing brick structures. A three-story container residential project in Taiwan was built on the ruins of an old brick house, preserving the bottom brick wall as a historical trace and stacking containers on the upper floors using steel rods. In this case, three 40-foot containers were used on the first floor to create an open space, while the second floor was constructed using one 40-foot and one 20-foot container to form bedrooms and a balcony. The connection between the brick structure and the containers is achieved through steel transition pieces, preserving the load-bearing function of the brick wall while leveraging the rapid construction advantages of containers.

III. Composite Structural System

In scenarios requiring higher structural strength, containers and brick walls can form a composite load-bearing system. For example, in one case, containers served as the main living space, with brick walls used locally for functional zoning (such as bathrooms and kitchens), while also bearing vertical loads. This design requires attention to the deformation coordination between the two materials, usually achieved by installing elastic pads or sliding supports at the connections.