Ship to Shore Housing

What an idea! I love watching innovations like this grow from a mere concept (my introduction at a neighborhood council meeting several years ago) to the first generation model (their first house built in North Charleston in 2004) to the development of a full-scale plan for best use (their hopes to capitalize on both the economic and ecologic benefits of SG Blocks). This will be fun to follow!

"Late last month, [David] Cross, 44, stood outside the ConGlobal Industries North Charleston depot surrounded by the pieces of his first official business deal for his newly formed company, SG Blocks LLC.

Four shipping containers with some missing side panels and apertures for doors and windows sat strapped to flatbed trucks. The next day, the retrofitted cargo containers would be shipped to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where they would meet up with similarly recycled shipping containers from ConGlobal depots in Jacksonville, Fla., and Norfolk, Va. In a matter of days, the boxes would be welded together and turned into a 5,000-square-foot administrative building.

Though Cross has been at this endeavor for a number of years, with the formation of SG Blocks—the SG stands for safe and green—Cross is hoping to sell his design to the masses as an alternative to traditional housing structures.

It has taken a good deal of time, Cross admitted, to sell the public on the idea that the 4.25-ton cargo containers piling up in port cities courtesy of America’s trade deficit could be recycled into homes that have no resemblance to cargo containers.

Still, Cross is confident the steel containers can provide safer, more durable and environmentally friendly structures for homes than traditional building supplies, and simultaneously bring down homeowners’ insurance rates. "

For the full Charleston Regional Business Journal article: http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/pub/13_17/news/10109-1.html

For the SG Blocks website: http://www.sgblocks.com/

For clips from Bob Vila's show on the container houses: http://www.bobvila.com/BVTV/Bob_Vila/Video-0226-06-1.html