Introduction
Are you able to keep the enthusiasm about the shipping container for another whole year?
That is the question that was asked of me last spring and over the next couple of months, I thought long and hard about it. I honestly wasn’t sure. I had just finished a semester long investigation of exploring the shipping container’s feasibility in producing ecologically-minded affordable housing prototypes. While I had not explored every possibility, I had completed a fairly exhaustive investigation and I think I was ready to move forward. After all, that’s what we do as designers. We work on a project, and then another, and another, and we take from each a little piece of knowledge that we add to our design bank to make the next design that much better.
So, I decided to think about my thesis in terms of my strengths. I know that I can speak well. I know that I can write well. Certainly, a nice theoretical piece such as “Architecture as Palimpsest� or “Linguistic Tectonics of Design� would be an appropriate choice.
It was at this point that a confluence of three things occurred. One quote, one conversation, and one shipping container convinced me that another year to explore the shipping container was exactly the opportunity I needed.
The first was a quote from Albert Camus,
“Those who lack courage will always find a philosophy with which to justify it.�
The second was a conversation with Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity. In it he said,
“The difference between a good designer and a great designer is that a good designer has great ideas, but a great designer implements them.�
The final piece was a shipping container that was converted by a family member after she finished her graduate degree in Architecture at MIT. It was simple, elegant, and nestled into the Texas prairie landscape in a way which reinvigorated my desire to work with the shipping container for my thesis and explore the connection that it could have to a given location.
I decided that I could use my design strengths to enhance my design weaknesses.
I am not a great designer yet, but I do wish to be one.
