Built by a firm called Three Squared, the project is designed as the first of several larger shipping-container projects to come in the district, now that the effects of the Great Recession and other challenges have finally been overcome.
First proposed in 2008, an innovative project to use empty shipping containers to build new housing in Detroit is finally getting underway.
Construction began this week on a three-story model unit on Trumbull in the Corktown neighborhood. Built by a firm called Three Squared, the project is designed as the first of several larger shipping-container projects to come in the district, now that the effects of the Great Recession and other challenges have finally been overcome.
While tiny in itself, the project is seen as an experiment in using a new building technology as a tool in urban revitalization. European nations already have allow buildings to use empty shipping containers to build schools, housing, and more.
“Until you really build something, people don’t believe you can do it,” Leslie Horn, CEO of Three Squared, said this week at the Trumbull site as workers stacked nine empty containers from Detroit to create the three-story structure.
Empty shipping containers have been used extensively in Europe to create not only housing but projects like office space for entrepreneurs and other types of projects. But their use is much rarer in the U.S. because of the unconventional nature of these projects.
Horn’s project is not related to another proposed shipping-container project in the city that would create a boutique hotel out of containers in the Eastern Market district.
Backers of such projects say reusing empty containers is a good way to recycle them, instead of letting containers stack up in port cities around the world when shippers find it too expensive to send them back empty to China or other ports of origin.
The model project on Trumbull is expected to be completed and open for visitors in June.
“The neighbors here have been great,” Horn said. “We’ve had some people stop by and say very kind things to us.”
