09/08/08 11:23am

Mirabeau B. Sales Center, 2410 Waugh, Hyde Park, Montrose, Houston

The new sales center for the Mirabeau B. is looking pre-fab! Now at the northwest corner of Hyde Park and Waugh: two 20-ft. recycled shipping containers, outfitted with a solar array on a digitally fabricated rack. The website for Metalab, the architecture firm in charge of the project, claims the solar panels will generate 180 kilowatt hours per month. What’s that figure converted to condo sales?

Oh, but selling condos is apparently only this structure’s day job for now:

Solar panels on the roof can fold shut at night or during bad weather, said Andrew Vrana from Metalab.

“We would like to further develop this as a solution,” he said. “People could have one of these made and put in their backyard and supplement their energy with solar power.”

Below: more pics!

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01/10/08 2:42pm

House Made of Shipping Containers at 206 Cordell St., Houston, Under Construction

That house built out of shipping containers on Cordell St. in Brookesmith looks like it’ll be ready for delivery soon. Yes, this was a spec house — and yes, there already is a buyer.

Last year, Numen Development owners Katie Nichols and John Walker used shipping containers to construct the Apama Mackey Gallery on 11th St. in the Heights — because the gallery owner wanted a structure she can move when the property owner kicks her off the land. But the house Numen is building on Cordell looks like it’s going to be around for a while. It comes with its own, uh . . . doublewide lot, and it’s right across the street from a meat-processing plant.

After the jump: drawings, models, and an earlier construction photo of this neat little three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,851-square-foot package!

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06/07/07 9:36am

Shipping Container

Here’s a building method that seems well-suited for Houston: It’s fast, it’s temporary, and it involves both shipping containers and fine art. Remember the demolition permit for the site on 11th Street in the Heights we mentioned a few days back? By Friday, it’ll have a completed building on it, according to ‘stina, who wrote in her LiveJournal Wednesday:

Today, the shipping containers will be delivered and installed to the new site of the 1400 square foot gallery, and you can see for yourself what this form of construction looks like. They started this morning with merely a few spread footings and grade beams and they’ll finish this evening with all the containers set and a good portion (if not all) of the roof in place.

It’s the new Apama Mackey Gallery, pieced together out of three shipping containers by Numen Development. The gallery will occupy the site for a few years, until the landowner is ready for a more permanent development in that location. Then Mackey will be able to move the gallery to a new lot she hopes to find in the meantime.

Some of the project’s green features, according to ‘stina’s report:

Photo: Flickr user Ross Dunn