On an old used car lot in Phoenix, architects Brian Stark and Wesley James placed 16 used shipping containers and turned them into 8 onebedroom apartments. With the goal of creating marketrate rental units, the architects tried to work with the containers rather than altering them.

The containers are stacked as they would be on ships, using the camlock (twist lock) system to lock them in place two stories high. The container doors were left in place welded open or shut in an alternating pattern and serve as the main source of daylight. Only a few small windows are cut from the sides of the containers.

The Containers on Grand apartments (the first container apartments in the Western US) now rent at market rate ($1000/month for a 740squarefoot onebedroom; the going rate for the upandcoming arts district just outside downtown).

While this type of construction may never outcompete the area’s “stick and stucco” vernacular, Stark argues that it could compete strongly in a place like San Francisco where labor costs are high.

What would prevent this type of building from scaling are codes (there are height limits due to combustion regulations) and financing. Containers on Grand was selffinanced (Stark and James became investors, among others), since, as Stark explains, “banks aren’t on board yet with financing a shipping container project”.

One unit is being rented on VRBO as a nightly rental: https://www.vrbo.com/852066]

Original story: https://faircompanies.com/videos/how...