A 38-Unit Shipping Container Development Proposed in South Carolina

• October 31, 2014
• 1 Comment

by Lark Turner

The architect who designed D.C.‘s shipping container apartments tells UrbanTurf that he has a similar, but much larger project in the works: A 38-unit shipping container apartment development in South Carolina.

Travis Price of Travis Price Architects was in South Carolina this week to present plans on the proposed development. It would be made up of 640-square-foot one-bedrooms, and sit adjacent to a coworking office. The design for the homes serves as a good example of what the DC development might have looked like on a much larger scale.

For every ten units in the building, Price plans to building in a unit that will serve as office space for the building’s tenants. That container will be split into about six working pods for the residents. Depending on interest, the unit can either be converted back into a residence or more units can be turned into similar spaces.

“If that market increases, its flexibility is great,” Price said. “The same thing could happen on a small unit on the ground floor. You could, for example, turn one into a coffee shop.”

The interiors planned for the apartments look similar to those on the Brookland development, with light-colored wood framing the space. But in these units he’ll be able to expose some of the corrugated interior of the shipping container. Otherwise he plans to make similar interiors to support the buildings’ prevailing design philosophy: creating something modern and industrial from low-impact, durable components.

“It’s durable and it’s cheap and it’s warm and inviting,” he said. “I’m really interested in using industrial components off the shelf to make the ordinary extraordinary. Everything is flat-shipped.”

Price said the project is the largest he’s done with shipping containers, though he’s also in the very early stages of developing a 400-unit building in North Dakota.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/what_a_40-unit_shipping_container_development_looks_like/9171

1 Comment

1. skidrowedc@gmail.com said at 5:19 pm on Friday October 31, 2014:
   The renderings are fantastic! But the (two) shipping container buildings I've seen in person don't come off so well. And vines have a funny way of not growing as hoped, even with considerable ongoing effort and expense (as was the case at the Finnish Embassy). Architect Price has his work cut out for him. I doubt that shipping container buildings will ever take off as a mainstream way to do building. The interior rooms are so narrow, for starters; and our massive trade deficit and the current mode of transporting goods (which has produced a glut of containers and thus made them fairly cheap) won't last forever. But I can imagine these buildings being charming eccentrics that one is pleased to discover occasionally, somewhat like railroad cars converted to diners are now.