Affordable Housing Hits the Water...In Shipping Containers

Facing a shortage of space to build new housing, Copenhagen is looking to reclaim some unused space on the water to provide floating affordable student housing in shipping containers.

1 minute read

October 11, 2016, 5:00 AM PDT

By jwilliams @jwillia22


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Sean Pavone / Shutterstock

With available land in short supply in Copenhagen, the design startup Urban Rigger has launched a novel (or sad, depending on your opinion) solution to providing affordable housing for the city's student population. Students can now rent a shipping container sitting on a barge off the coast for $600 a month. Fortunereports that the program is the result of a collaboration between Urban Rigger and Bjarke Ingels of the architecture firm BIG.

By stacking containers in two staggered triangles, the designers create an open-air courtyard in the center, and use the tops of the second level for a deck, a solar array, and a small lawn. Inside, the apartments—15 of them— have the spare but airy feeling you’d expect from a Scandinavian design project.

Although it's starting small, Urban Rigger sees the potential for expanding the housing opportunities onto additional barges or into other European cities facing similar land crunches.

Sunday, September 25, 2016 in Fortune

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