Little Footprint Big Forest – Container Cabin Contest

A friend just emailed me this great design contest that just happened here in King County. The parks department wants low impact over night structures that are easy to install and maintain for guests in their parks. Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam was  judge!

The challenge is to design an overnight structure re-using a surplus cargo container, which can be staged anywhere in King County Parks’ 26,000 acres of open space, and more specifically, on our forested lands that have minimal roads or utilities.

While I’ve questioned containers being use for building before, it mostly came down to it being more expensive. However in this situation the counties goals fit the containers perfectly. Strong secure structures that can be built off site, have minimal maintenance and have a low impact on the site. I bet they’ll be using an off-road fork lift to place these at site without roads like they mention.

Check out the entries below, they are really creative especially giving the counties requirements. Some very cool ideas to be gleaned from these designs. Hit the link below to read more on King counties page.

 

 

Congratulations to Hybrid Architecture for their REtain design, which was selected as the winning design of the Little Footprint Big Forest contest and was announced today at the Built Green Conference.

What do 26,000 acres of open space, public recreation and a cargo container have in common?

Conservation. Sustainability. Public Recreation. Aesthetics. Forest Stewardship.

The Situation
King County Parks is looking to balance the natural and built environments to create truly inspirational accommodations that:

* use salvaged and locally-sourced materials
* are economically achievable, both for us to build and maintain and for the public to use
* can be replicated across our 26,000 acre system

Read more about Little Foot Print Big Forrest Shipping Container Contest

The Challenge
King County Parks and the GreenTools Program have teamed up to create a competition that we hope will inspire designers to integrate the principles of conservation, sustainability, public recreation, aesthetics and forest stewardship.

The challenge is to design an overnight structure re-using a surplus cargo container, which can be staged anywhere in King County Parks’ 26,000 acres of open space, and more specifically, on our forested lands that have minimal roads or utilities.

All submittals must be received by August 22, 2011 by 4:30 pm PST.

The Judges

* Dow Constantine – King County Executive
* Stone Gossard – Sustainability advocate and Pearl Jam rhythm guitarist
* Kevin Brown – Division Director, King County Parks
* Art Wolfe – Wildlife and Landscape Photographer
* Eric Corey Freed – Principal, organicArchitect
* Kim Munizza – Principal, Mithun
* Aaron Adelstein – Executive Director, Built Green
* Chris Toher – Executive Vice President and General Manager, Skanska
* Bill Schwartz – Manager, Small Projects – Capital Improvement Program, King County Parks
* Andy Wappler – Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Puget Sound Energy
* YOU! Enter to win a chance to join our all-star judges panel.

Here are my favorite entries:


 


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1 Response

  1. Donna Day Rose says:

    I LOVE this. We have a smallish house in Florida and without a basement or attic, our space is super tight. Two years ago I told my husband I wanted to buy two containers and stack them and attach them to the house at a right angle to make an addition. Since you can’t dig a foundation here, I wanted to sink them about 4 feet to have a split level and in the process create a courtyard in the back. Ooh -la-la. Does somebody want to come here and do it??? Great article.