Shipping Containers, v. 4

It's an inadvertent but recurring subject of interest here at greg.org: the architectural use of connex shipping containers. Sunday, NPR aired a puffy little interview with Zalmay Khalilzad, the new US envoy to Afghanistan; it turns out he'll be living in a shipping container on the heavily fortified grounds of the embassy in Kabul. He's not alone. According to this AP story on AfghanNews.net, over 100 containers were refurbished in Dubai to provide instant housing for the influx of US...
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Shipping Containers, v. 3

A sporadically recurring topic here at greg.org, the non-shipping use of shipping containers. [Instigating post here, extensive post here.] Shipping container used in an illegal Israeli outpost, image:nytimes.com Samantha Shapiro's NYTimes Mag story, "The Unsettlers," profiles young, militant Israelis who pioneer illegal settlements in the West Bank. Shipping container used in an illegal Israeli outpost in the Jordan Valley, image:metropolismag.com Stephen Zacks' review in the Feb. 2003 Metropolis of a (cancelled) exhibit on architecture and urban planning in the West...
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On The Transformative Power of Architecture, or The Caribbean Light At The End of The Tunnel

Last month I wrote about art and architecture made from connex containers, the standard 40-foot steel boxes used for international shipping. #1 architects MVRDV proposed a complex made from them for Rotterdam, their home town (and a major port). As the discussion on this architecture message board shows, container architecture is an idea with a lot of adherents. Now you can add the Department of Military Aesthetics to the list. Containers were used to construct Camp Delta, the more...
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carry-on luggage, four weeks later

Nearly a month after an accidental click into a carry-on luggage article brought my surfing to a teary halt, it's okay to laugh again. In this week's New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten tells of of several successful attempts to carry Emmy Award statuettes (complete with "sharp-tipped wings"...shaped like "serrated steak knives") onto transatlantic flights. [Apparently, none of the comedy writers or filmmakers in the story are yet listed on Ashcroft's dissenter=terrorist no-fly list or are giants of Iranian cinema.]...
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