Small Container Transformed Into a Home @ExpandIsbu @ArchiDaily @Homesthetics

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

From @LeanUrbanism — Lean Sprawl Repair – Mall Retrofit

The past decade has seen the demise of hundreds of shopping centers and malls. Out of roughly 1,000 enclosed malls in the US, approximately 30% are dead or dying. In places of weak recovery and population loss, malls may languish for years, negatively impacting the surrounding suburban communities.

Malls are sprawl types that are normative and repetitive, and the tools for their repair can be the same. In places of economic and population growth, malls will be retrofitted into urban cores with multiple uses: offices, residential, live-work units, and hotels that will rebalance the existing retail space.

Municipalities, developers and planners need new ways to utilize and adapt such underperforming commercial properties. Having already outlived their lifecycles, these properties can provide inexpensive space for business incubation and/or affordable housing that has become scarce in recent years, as downtowns and inner-city neighborhoods have experienced a redevelopment renaissance. Read more: Lean Sprawl Repair – Mall Retrofit | Lean Urbanism

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Update: Waterfront Pioneer Plaza Shipping Container Public Market

@1sidewalkballet awesome! 1. what is the surrounding neighborhood like: walk to the market? 2. see Seaside incubators ow.ly/lnTSp
— neil21 (@neil21) May 30, 2013

Thanks for asking @neil21! Thought I'd dedicate more than 140 characters to answer... The original post: A Proposal — A Recycled Shipping Container Public Market for Nanaimo's Pioneer Waterfront Plaza

This illustration of Census tract 0015.00 shows the plaza site (circled). And some demographics: Population 4,565 (Change since 2006 +5.5) Dwellings Total Private Households: 2590 Distribution by dwelling type Single Detached 26.4% Semi-detached 1.9% Row House 1.9% Duplex 6.9% Hi-rise Apt. 20.8% Low-rise Apt. 41.7% Single Attached 0.4% Population by gender Male 2,215 Female 2,355 Median age 48.9.

My Old City neighbourhood is well within a 15 minute walk to the plaza.

Walk time from the western edge of this tract to the plaza: 15 minutes. Adding the households to the north and south, I estimate the population in the catchment area within a 15-20 minute walk to be about 7500. 

And a google earth view looking west.

The plaza could and should be part of what our award winning Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines calls for: "the development of an open space and pathway network throughout the downtown. Existing city owned lands and rights-of-way, combined with private property redevelopment, provide the opportunity for a coordinated park, pathway and open space plan…"  (But in Nanaimo this key public pathway on public land is a "driveway" reserved for "tenant parking":  Public Path Used as "Driveway" and "Tenant Parking" is Contrary to the Downtown Urban Design Plan, Diminishes The Integrity of the Heritage Restoration) And should seamlessly connect the waterfront to the downtown commercial district. Critically here: Repair the Square!

Currently there's one largish grocery store serving the city centre, any owner-operator bakery or butcher shop or small market have long since fled or become extinct. Seasonally cruise ships drop about 2500 well fed and slaked tourists into downtown Nanaimo for the day and the harbour is popular with boaters. Condo towers nearby and medium density low-rise along the water to the north which all connect to the plaza by a really quite spectacular waterfront promenade — have a stroll. To the south, Nanaimo's original, established neighbourhoods, the reserve lands of the Snuneymuxw First Nation and the newly city-acquired waterfront rail yards: City of Nanaimo to Purchase 26.7 Acre Downtown Waterfront Rail Yards

The Fairgrounds — Shipping Container Market and Events Space, Washington DC

The Fairgrounds, Washington DC under construction

Getting a peek at the interior of Fairgrounds, the new shipping container market and events space just north of Nationals Park, Washington DC.

Fairgrounds Interior Shots / Photo Gallery - JDLand/Near Southeast DC

From ContainerLiving.net — Repurposed Shipping Containers Base for Innovative Social Housing in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

We have had a few container homes in Canada but this is definitely the most recent. 12 Containers are being utilised to form social housing for women in the downtown Eastside of the city.

The project is looking to complete by April 2013 and is the brainchild of the Atira Women’s Resource society, which bought a lot in 2009 to buildtraditional housing. Read more: Container Homes Hit Vancouver! | ContainerLiving.net

From architzer.com — The Rise and Rise of the Architectural Shipping Container

Dekalb Market in Brooklyn

The advent of the shipping container as architectural module and medium probably originated in the late 1950s before being seriously considered in the ’70s, when economic and oil crises provoked new readings and applications of architecture. The idea has recently developed into a full-fledged trend over the last few years, if the proliferation of container-themed projects–everything from schools andhomes to think tanks and pavilions, and plenty more–being uploaded daily to our database is to be believed. But an entire market where everything is housed and sold from stacks of shipping containers? More at: The Rise and Rise of the Architectural Shipping Container

A Proposal — A Recycled Shipping Container Public Market for Nanaimo's Pioneer Waterfront Plaza

As a project for my online SketchUp course I'm looking at Nanaimo's Pioneer Waterfront Plaza, a Port Authority property designed by local architect Ian Niamath. If design elements alone could make a great public space this plaza would be quite wonderful. The entrances to it are dramatic and thoughtful. Pattern in the surface hardscaping align to a circular fountain. The concrete and landscaping treatments echo Erickson and Oberlander.

But, in fact it is almost totally deserted all but a very few days a year. It's the top of a 2 level parkade on the waterfront. About at grade to the downtown streets to the west. The east side is part of Nanaimo's most loved public space, where the shops and cafés (there's even a tea room) and the float plane terminal edge the harbourfront walkway. This seawalk extends past and through the working harbour — commercial fish boats, pleasure craft, serious ocean going sailboats, bubble boat ferries put-putting across to the islands in the harbour and Puget Sound mini-cruise ships (The Port Authority is in the process of leasing the harbour to a private firm, a 30 year lease and neither the NPA or the proponent seem to have, at this point, credibly addressed any of the local opposition to the plan. Some background.)

"#Markets need 4 elements: the right mix; sense of place; economic underpinnings; commitment to surrounding community." @pps_placemaking
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) April 12, 2013

My configuration for a public market on the site has 14 charter vendors in recycled shipping containers, 6 10 foot and 8 20 foot. I'm suggesting the Port and the City of Nanaimo build a canopy over the site and supply utilities. The core vendors would include the small merchants who left the inner city or have disappeared entirely in cities such as Nanaimo where large national corporations have been permitted within the planning parameters to locate in remote areas only accessible by car. (That the crazily expensive infrastructure that facilitates this business model amounts to a subsidy is best left for another post perhaps.) These would include the butcher the baker and probably not the candlestick maker, but you get my point. The fish stall, cheese specialties, coffee and tea. And of course fresh produce. The 1 day a week market and the craft market for cruise ships that now use the site can be accommodated as well. All participants would benefit from the traffic generated by their fellow vendors.

I think the idea warrants research and a feasibility study and for these reasons:

● The repurposed shipping containers offer an economical way to expand existing small enterprises. I'm suggesting that these be purchased by the vendors and that they commit to a lease of the space for a period of time.
● The cost sharing between local small business people and the Port and the City is beneficial and has the potential to add up to more than the sum of its parts.
● The containers offer the important ability for the individual vendors to put their small satellite shops into lockdown, effectively stopping almost all expenses in times of reduced or no revenue.
● It may be practical to remove the containers during the winter months making the businesses quite viable and sustainable from busy summer months revenues.
● The contribution to the enhancement of walkable community-building downtown can't be overestimated. Lots of lip service to "place making" but the public market "walks the walk". Local government providing a public market that supplements other forms of commerce in our towns and cities is the norm in most of the world.

And a SketchUp animation (set resolution to HD for better results):

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

From changingcitybook.com — Imouto (“little sister") House, Vancouver’s First Shipping Container Housing Will Create 12 Units for Women Aged 55+

Right now, Imouto House looks like a stack of shipping containers that somebody took a cutting torch to. That’s because it is exactly that; Vancouver’s first recycled shipping container based housing project will create 12 units of housing for Atira Women’s Resource Society. Imouto will in part provide housing for women aged 55+ living in shelters or SRO rooms. Imouto is the Japanese word for “little sister”and was chosen because the building in located in Japantown, kitty corner from the Vancouver Japanese Language School.

The first containers were lifted into position in late November, and the Barry McGinn designed project is expected to complete for April 1st after a week-long open house for the public. Each unit will be 320 sq ft, with its own kitchen, bathroom and laundry, and construction is quite a bit cheaper than traditional methods coming in at under $100,000 a unit.

Imouto House – Alexander Street | Changing City Updates