Exploring the Potential of Climate-Adaptive Container Building Design under Future Climates Scenarios in Three Different Climate Zones

Abstract

The deployment of containers as building modules has grown in popularity over the past years due to their inherent strength, modular construction, and relatively low cost. The upcycled container architecture is being accepted since it is more eco-friendly than using the traditional building materials with intensive carbon footprint. Moreover, owing to the unquestionable urgency of climate change, existing climate-adaptive design strategies may no longer respond effectively as they are supposed to work in the previous passive design. Therefore, this paper explores the conceptual design for an upcycled shipping container building, which is designed as a carbon-smart modular living solution to a single family house under three design scenarios, related to cold, temperate, and hot–humid climatic zones, respectively. The extra feature of future climate adaption has been added by assessing the projected future climate data with the ASHRAE Standard 55 and Current Handbook of Fundamentals Comfort Model. Compared with the conventional design, Rome would gradually face more failures in conventional climate-adaptive design measures in the coming 60 years, as the growing trends in both cooling and dehumidification demand. Consequently, the appropriate utilization of internal heat gains are proposed to be the most promising measure, followed by the measure of windows sun shading and passive solar direct gain by using low mass, in the upcoming future in Rome. Future climate projection further shows different results in Berlin and Stockholm, where the special attention is around the occasional overheating risk towards the design goal of future thermal comfort.

Smart Green Prefabrication: Sustainability Performances of Industrialized Building Technologies

“…MMC Category 1: Pre-manufacturing, 3D primary structural systems A systemized approach based on volumetric construction involving the production of three-dimensional units in controlled factory conditions before final installation. Volumetric units can be brought to the final site in a variety of forms ranging from a basic structure only to a structure with all internal and external finishes and services installed, all ready for installation T.01-Portable buildings [1,37] T.02-ISO Shipping containers [38,39] T.03-Light gauge steel modular units [40][41][42][43] T.04-Timber-framed modular units [40,42,43] T.05-CLT modular unit [40,42,43] T.06-Concrete modular units [40,43,44] MMC Category 2: Pre-manufacturing, 2D primary structural systems A systemized approach using flat-panel units used for basic floor, wall, and roof structures of varying materials which are produced in a factory environment and assembled at the final workforce to produce a final three-dimensional structure…”

Comfortable Liveable Space: Shipping Container and Bamboo as Sustainable Building Materials in Equatorial Climate Perspective?

“…This situation is getting worse as the physical features of the shipping container are made of steel. Special attention should be paid to improve both the thermal resistance and hygro-thermal capacity of the envelope due to overheating risk and more humidity issues (Shen et al, 2020). Insulation plays an important role in converting the shipping container into habitual space although Kamarazaly et al (2017) found container construction is feasible in Malaysia.…”

Strategies of Design Concepts and Energy Systems for Nearly Zero-Energy Container Buildings (NZECBs) in Different Climates

“…Thus, they can be one solution to the above challenges in terms of prefabricated or modular buildings. Compared to traditional building materials that have a large footprint, off-site constructed buildings are more eco-friendly and are in line with the concept of upcycled container architecture [5]. Flexible and quickly assembled modular container buildings usually consist of one or more standardized individual containers with size restrictions that depend in particular on what can be safely and economically built and transported.…”