Container House by Rama Architects started off as a vacant bushland web site in Church Issue, NSW, owned by two imaginative and innovative customers. The couple arrived to architects Daniel Raymond and Thomas Martin with a vision to develop a new house built from shipping containers.
‘The need was not only from an thrilling aesthetic that could be created, but also from an affordability and time productive part,’ claims Thomas. ‘Shipping containers can substantially reduce the cost of a job thanks to the nominal structural engineering essential (the containers have their have degree of structural adequacy), but most importantly due to the speediness of erecting the composition of the house, which prospects to significantly less labour, less keeping fees, and in the long run bigger price savings.’
Nevertheless, no job is without its troubles, and though applying shipping containers was eventually useful, they introduced their personal issues. Thomas explains, ‘Because the containers are set dimensions, the layout of rooms and the spaces essential for these rooms proved hard when keeping the integrity of the containers. Plumbing, insulations, window openings, and cavities for providers all experienced to be correctly established out prior to fabrication of the containers.’
Craning the containers onto the steep site also needed closing the road, which could only be accomplished at night time.
Dealing with the surrounding bushland landscape with the utmost regard was yet another precedence of this project. By elevating the construction off the floor, Rama Architects and builder Elo Silo were in a position to protect the the greater part of existing native trees, although building a visual relationship to the water system, Pittwater, found just down the hill.
Accompanying supplies together with hardwood timber cladding, fibre cement sheeting, and metallic roof sheeting were selected for their bushfire score, sturdiness, and low-routine maintenance characteristics suitable to the site, which is inclined to falling branches and stormwater operate-off. It’s the amalgamation of these differing materials into a fantastically refined property that Thomas is most happy of.
‘Shipping containers, timber battens, expressed FC sheets, and steel-framed buildings together sound pretty jumbled, but it is the celebration of their uncooked qualities with an emphasis on the vertical expression that harmonises them together’ he explains. These uncooked resources, juxtaposed in the lush, extraordinary area landscape, are the cornerstones of this impressive residence design and style.
