If ever evidence was needed of the potential of shipping containers to be converted into housing, a project in California has demonstrated it.
Rather than just being a quirky single home, no less than 40 dwellings are being developed in a new construction project using containers in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
The Dolores Huerta Apartments project is a supportive housing scheme in the south of the city being built by RMG Housing at a cost of $7 million (£5 million). It is part of a much larger undertaking by the SDS Capital Group’s Supported Housing Find, which operates across the state.
A key aspect of the scheme is that once the construction work is complete, it will not be apparent that the containers have been used in the construction of the homes due to the cladding and concrete around them. However, the properties will not just be robust, but also cost less, with each container priced at $200,000, a third of the normal cost per home.
The project is being hailed as a highly effective way of tackling the scourge of homelessness that blights the area, with the use of private sector funds in this way being all but unique.
Chief Executive at RMHG Housing Tim Roth commented: “What we’re doing here should be a model of how to tackle homelessness for this great city of ours and the state of California.”
Anyone looking to buy a used shipping container in the UK may be fascinated by the thought that it could be embedded into the structure of a building in a way that disguises the fact.
It’s not that anyone trying this method of building a home in the US necessarily wants to hide the fact they are using a container; last week the Daily Mail featured some very unusual buildings from around the world that included a holiday home in Florida made from three shipping containers.
The owner, who first let a family stay there for free after a hurricane wrecked their home, now rents it out as an Airbnb property.
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