recycle used shipping containers into emergency housing

A research programme that’s looking at how to recycle used shipping containers into emergency housing in disaster areas isn’t so outlandish. In fact, ISBU (for “Intermodal Steel Building Unit”) construction has taken off big-time in recent years, due in part to a global glut of used shipping containers created by the rapid expansion of exports from China.
While that surplus has dwindled in recent years, fans of shipping container housing point to numerous other benefits: built to stand up to rough climatic conditions, steel containers are corrosion-proof, fire-proof and — when anchored in place — able to withstand both hurricanes and earthquakes, according to the ISBU Association International. In fact, the group calls the containers the “strongest building construction on the planet.”
Converting a shipping container into a shelter is also quicker than building a new house from the ground up, and doesn’t require lumber, a material that’s in short supply in places like Haiti.
There’s actually precedent for using shipping containers for emergency shelter: following the deadly earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province in May of 2008, some people whose homes were destroyed were housed in a shipping container complex that was covered under a tent to shelter them from the sun, as the photo up top illustrates.
The for-profit organisation PFNC (which stands for “Por fin, nuestra casa” or “Finally, a home of our own”) aims to recycle surplus containers into safe housing for poor factory workers in Mexico. Homes like the one pictured here (right) will include one or two bedrooms, a stove and refrigerator and 3/4 bath … all for a projected price of under $10,000.