Designer micro-home made from shipping container

 Dublin designer builds the My Pad micro home from container - 

 Containers also being used as offices - What about making a community space from one?

 A Dublin-based interior designer who used to present a TV make-over show has created the prototype for a holiday home she calls the My Pad, by upcycling an old shipping container.The My Pad  was designed and  built  by Sinead Moore, who  used to present  RTE’s Beyond the Hall Door   series.

Moore's prototype My Pad is  a holiday home which sleeps two adults and two children, and is based on one 20 foot container.  The My Pad has 129 square feet of living space. It  is lined with wood and insulated. The price of 18,000 plus VAT, includes delivery by truck and connection to the national grid. It can be delivered and habitable within six weeks.

The My Pad micro dwelling will be sold in two sizes, a 20 foot or 40 foot version, according to a Sunday Times report by Niall Toner. The smaller size was used to build Moore’s prototype, and it is getting lots of attention.

She got the idea to convert  the container into a home after spending  a holiday glam camping in West Cork , and then learning that there was a global surplus of  shipping containers due to the economic slowdown.
Moore now runs an interior design business of the same name from offices in Sandyford with  her business partner Michael O Connor .

Architects around the world have been converting shipping containers into buildings for years. Their standard measurements make containers easy to interlock and combine into larger structure. Plus they are very strong and already meet lots of standards. There are an estimated 17M of them  now available at quite low prices.

They are popular in Amsterdam, Australia and  and Berlin, and  a Dublin–based architectural group, ABK, designed and built a live-work scheme in London’s docklands in 2005 which used recycled shipping  containers  Container City is at Trinity buoy Wharf, near Canning Town in London. In the US, a charity called PFNC creates homes from old shipping containers. Conversions there cost less than Euro 2000.

Another Dublin architect Richard Barnwell, who works with www.exhibit.ie came up with an idea for a multi-storey office design based on containers for his  final year industrial design project at NCAD, which  also got a lot of attention  from architects globally. He has plans to develop the project further.

It would  be great to create a community project in Windy Arbour that involved re-using and upcycling  two or more containers into a public building especially if it could  be used to develop local  construction skills and  also provide a much needed meeting place for local people.

One idea I would like to pursue is that of working with the Electricity Supply Board  ESB and DLR County Council  around adding a shipping container based building to the roof of the electricity supply station on the  first green at Mulvey Park, which is next door to the Central  Mental  Hospital.

If the ESB is interested, the new container- based community space could also offer a recharging point for electric cars, which I know the government is keen to roll out over the next few years.

 The cost would be minimal for the ESB and it would be a great way to revitalise Windy Arbour, using architecture, new technology and by getting  people in the community involved and developing new skills.

 It would be great to be involved in a community project which could redevelop an old shipping ontainer for use as a community space. If you agree and  you would also like to make this  kind of project happen in Dublin, you can contact  me  by email: shan.sharklet@gmail.com