This home is a bit larger than many featured on this blog, but by conventional standards it's still considered small. Connecticut architect Rob Coolidge recently designed this roughly 1,300 square foot container home. It's actually two 40 foot containers separated by an enclosed area that includes the living and dining areas, kitchen, and entry.
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| Front Perspective |
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| Rear Perspective |
The two 8' x 40' containers, separated by a 16'-8" clear-spanned space, house three bedrooms, two bathrooms, the laundry area, mechanical room, and an office. As mentioned above, the living and dining areas, along with the kitchen and entry, are found in the enclosed area between the two containers.
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| Plan Perspective |
In this experimental prototype design, Rob's objectives were to...
- Use containers for their strengths
- Not feel obliged to use containers where they become too problematic
- Design real, uncompromised living space
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| Aerial Perspective |
When I inquired about what he had in mind for a foundation, he said his initial thought was for a crawl space accessed via a hatch in the mechanical room floor. Other possibilities include full basement accessed through an exterior cellar hatch, slab, piers, or any suitable foundation that budget and local conditions allow.
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| Cross Section |
The roof would consist of steel trusses and structural insulated panels (SIPs).
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| View from kitchen toward dining and living areas. |
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| View from the outside, looking in. |
As you can readily see based on the interior perspectives, the living, dining, and kitchen areas are open and airy, with plenty of natural light.
A problem commonly encountered in container home master bedroom design is that the bed itself is simply too large to walk around comfortably in one orientation, or access is limited to only one side, or too restricted in the other orientation. Rob got around this problem with a simple two foot bump-out that accommodates the the bed and provide comfortable access from all sides. With that, the entire bedroom now has a spacious feel.
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| Floor Plan |
If you like this design then I'm sure the architect would love to hear from you. I suspect he'd be willing to discuss modifications, local code compliance, costs, and any other concerns you might have if you're thinking about building this. Contact Robert T. Coolidge at:
http://www.robertcoolidge.com/index.html
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