"When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere — on sea, or land, or high in the air — humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!" - Nikola Tesla
- Intermodal Steel Building Unit
- enterprise, enterprisingness, go-ahead (readiness to embark on bold new ventures)
- first step, opening move, opening (the first of a series of actions)
- VITRUVIUS: FIRMITAS (DURABLE), UTILITAS (USEFUL), VENUSTAS (BEAUTIFUL)
- JEFFERSON: LIFE, LIBERTY, & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
- DARWIN: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
A minimalist approach integrating old world craftsmanship with renewable 21st century technology.
Concentrating on sustainable low maintenance housing that provides clean energy and safe, secure shelter to its inhabitants.
Utilizing the icon of 20th Century Globalization as the core design element: The corrugated steel shipping container.
WHY SHIPPING CONTAINERS?
Thanks to a growing trade deficit here in the United States they have been piling up in seaports for years creating a rusting eye sore for the communities that live around these freight terminals.
Most companies have little choice but to stockpile them as it has not been cost effective to ship them back empty to major exporting countries. As many as 700,000 containers sit unused in the United States today.
They're relatively cheap, abundant, incredibly strong, versatile, weather proof, and the infrastructure needed to transport them to and from a project site already exists on a global scale by land, sea, or air. There is simply no other modular housing concept that can match all these qualities.
It seems fitting that these rudimentary "dry-vans" - which were instrumental in expanding the rampant unsustainable consumerism that marked the last half century - will find new life at the center of a transitional movement away from that very same consumption driven, debt based lifestyle.
