Page 3 - Habitat Container Magazine Winter Issue

Habitat Container Magazine
Smart and Sustainable Habitats Winter 2017
The ISO containers have standard dimensions that ease the process of planning and utilizing it for house development. Refurbishing the containers allows for different sections of the house to be strategically placed and ensuring the interior of the house has well-developed ventilation systems. The remodeling, however, may interfere with the integrity of the building facilitating the need for safety checks. The inclusion of support system for further strengthening the structure is advisable. It is crucial to balance dead and live loads to ensure integrity and safety of the house structure that is developed. Further assessment of enhancing affordable housing using used ISO shipping containers is recommended.
The building industry has evolved with people looking for more affordable housing. The construction industry players have focused on meeting the demand of the market through provision of affordable housing. Used International Standards Organization (ISO) containers have become one of the main alternatives to building affordable housing (Bernardo, Oliveira, Nepomuceno, & Andrade, 2013).
The ISO containers come in different dimensions, which suits different housing needs. Some of the container types include 1AAA and 1CCC referred as 20’ HC and 40’HC in the market respectively. Other containers include 10’HC and 45’ HC. The standardization of the containers regarding measurements enables the architects to plan for their utilization appropriately and accurately. Utilisation of similar size container is easy, as they are equal in dimension and fits against or on top of each other equally. The height of the ISO containers which is 2.71m provide a good building height that is closer to the range of standard housing height set by many countries that are around 2.4m (Bernardo et al., 2013; Giriunas, Sezen, & Dupaix, 2012). The ISO containers have been used for many years owing to its easy availabilities in different parts of the world. The reuse of ISO containers in developing houses provides the logistics company with a solution for disposing of their utilized containers. The availability of containers for reuse has further lowered cost of building houses when utilizing ISO containers.
The containers are supposed to be refurbished to suit the housing needs. The refurbishment includes developing the interior of the container to fit different house sections, creating doors and windows and ensuring thermal and ventilation system of the house work well. Using plywood in the interior to insulate the wall of the container if the most used technique.
Who Needs A ordable Housing?
We will soon arrive to a global population of 9 billion people, the housing crisis is a worldwide problem that need to be addressed immediately, the challenges are already of immense proportions, and cannot be addressed by the government only. It need to be addressed by all parties involved, that combines all aspects o the problem and solutions, public and private sectors, the users and the neighbors, land owners (government or private), service companies ( water/sewer, electric), banks, Financiers, Architects,
Engineers, Developers, etc...
People is displaced every day due to very di erent reasons;
Multi-Family housing complex
• Wars.
• Political persecutions
• Extreme weather catastrophes
• Sanitary problems
• Lack of water/food
Some Cities are growing so fast that the authorities are not able to keep pace constructing the housing and correspondent services required, that is traduced in more people living in even poorer conditions, less equal, less safer and un- healthier places.
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