Contractor, Architect Build Burg Shipping Container House

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Worried they would never be able to afford to build their own home in Brooklyn, architect Michelle Bertomen and contractor David Boyle constructed one out of shipping containers on an empty lot in Williamsburg they had purchased in 2008. The initial structure went up very quickly indeed — in one day — but then all construction halted for eight months because of a stop work order. In the end, the total cost was $400,000, only $100,000 less than their original estimate for a regular brick house. It would have cost only $300,000 without the DOB delay, though. If not for the fact that Bertomen was an architect, they could never have done it, said Boyle of the DOB process. “Because if you had to pay those professional fees for eight months, and every time is a new plan, it would break anybody,” he said. Some of the design innovations include radiant heat and walls insulated with a paint infused with ceramic particles, called Super Therm. Two potential issues the article doesn’t mention, however, is that the house appears to be extremely narrow and without a lot of space for windows. Click through to DNAinfo to see lots of photos of the interior. Could shipping containers or pre-fab houses help ease Brooklyn’s housing crunch?
Couple Builds Home Out of Shipping Containers in Williamsburg [DNAinfo]
Photo by Christopher Bride for PropertyShark