StructureHub

Cliff Kuang over at FastCompany just posted about a Dutch company’s seemingly simple, but apparently substantial shipping innovation:  collapsible shipping containers.  Dubbed the Cargoshell, the containers would look identical to their rigid counterparts if their mid-sections weren’t creased with a perimeter-length hinge.  But don’t let its appearance fool you; the Cargoshell may have a sea-changing (get it?) impact on the shipping industry; it is 75% more compact when transported empty, weighs 25% less, and requires less floor-space to access cargo than typical containers.  And the best part is that it is compatible with the millions of shipping containers that no one expects to stop using any time soon.

So why is the Cargoshell the topic of an architecture blog?  Because innovations in the young shipping container architecture movement have had less and less to do with the construction phase of buildings and more to do with their final design (see here and here).  The Cargoshell promises to change that, which seems appropriate since the movement owes its existence to the innovations of another field anyway.  Transporting stacked, collapsible shipping containers to isolated (or budget-minded) build sites would be substantially more efficient and lessen the inevitably of site disturbance in environmentally-sensitive areas as well.  The Cargoshell could also conceivably act as a better shell for temporary shipping container structures (e.g., emergency relief shelters).

Now we just need to wait for the Cargoshell’s price to come down a bit (3 times a normal container) and the second-hand market for them to develop.

Image courtesy of maissonbisson.