Shipping Container House Recycled - Where is the INNOVATION since?

I just reconnected the .5TB hard drive with all the family photos. I was looking at Jax and how he was even smaller than Suby is now and thought about the detail, colors and textures of the Container House.

I got an email back in September from Scott Benson, namesake of our son Subasio Scott Yuen, saying that there was an article in the SJ Mercury news about the new "Container House" concept that would be exhibited. Honestly, don't architectural school graduates have anything NEW to offer? Should they expect a bit more out of their teachers? I built mine in 2002! Six years ago and these "experts" are just coming around now?

WHERE IS THE INNOVATION? I do not fault them for using shipping containers. I fault them for not bringing anything NEW to the table. I learned so much from building mine. They could make it greener. NOT money green but ecologically green. What I see is the architectural equivalent of moving the coffee holder on a 2007 Ford Expedition and calling it a 2008 model. How disappointing.

UPDATE.  So I get an email forwarded from my old friend Fred Romley,  a realtor at Houlihan Lawrence in New York.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/realestate/01njzo.html?emc=eta1

The architects are at it again.  Hummm.  Better!  But what about the the livability?  Style? The Container offers up a lot of opportunity for style and detail that looks like it is totally missed.

See Live The Box http://studio.njit.edu/LiveTheBox/Resources.html

Note: This is a slideshow from Picasa Web Albums Embeded into the blog. Not a movie!

THE CONTAINER HOUSE 2002

CONTAINER HOUSE
was built in just 90 days by my father and I in the hot summer of 2002. Three 45 ft aluminum containers on the second floor provided approximately 1000 sf ft in a 2bd 2ba configuration along with a 400 sq ft deck facing the river on one side and a large commercial vineyard on the the other.


This provided plenty of room for the Spiderman Pinball Machine.


The 9.5 ft high containers allowed 8 ft 10 in high ceilings and big openings for oversized windows and oversized 3 panel commercial french doors.





Heating became a pressing issue with Jax joining us on November 5, 2002.





Alas, my dreams of using radiant heat from plastic tubing PEX strapped on the bottom of the container was abandoned soon after the inside temperature reached 40 degrees.





One major issue was how to seal the roof after the three top containers were bolted together. I decided on ordering an oversized vinyl tarp which covered the top in one solid membrane and protected glued down rigid insulating foam.








Had I the call to do this again, I would still use the tarp, but I would have planted a lawn and sprinkler on top to deaden the sound from the occasional heavy rain and provide cooling and better insulation.