Joel Karr Wants You! Group 41's Unique Offer to Design Your Sea Container Home

So I have to ask you, dear reader, are you up to the challenge? Because Architect Joel Karr is, and he's throwing down the gauntlet. The principle of the San Fran based firm Group 41, Inc., Karr is making a very unique offer. He's looking for an enthusiastic client, with land and ready to build, and he's willing to chip in the design for free. The catch? He wants to do a sea container home.


When I got the PR statement on the offer I was more than a little intrigued by Joel's bold bid to attract a client, so I spoke with him on the phone today to find out more. We had a great chat. Like so many architects, Karr is really excited about building with sea containers. He likes the green aspect, the reuse of something discarded. "So many of them are just designed and built for a single use," Karr said, and "you see yards full of derelict boxes." He called building with shipping containers "a solution to a blight." Well said. I couldn't agree more.

Karr is also fascinated with the design possibilities afforded by the unique nature of sea containers. He likened working with sea containers to playing with kids' building blocks, and talked about "creating an architectural language that is truly scalable, but modular." "You really can think limitlessly," Karr said. Listening to him, I got a great sense of his passion for design and his desire to challenge himself, and challenge paradigms, with the unique possibilities that sea container building affords.

Much to my surprise, Karr's unique offer is born out of frustration. He's been trying to find a client to do a shipping container project with, but although many people are interested, none have been willing to go that route. And to make matters worse, Karr sees far more enthusiasm being turned in to action outside the U.S., and he wants to change that. "When the rubber meets the road the vast majority just don't have the guts." He said his offer is "a challenge, a call to arms."

I'm with him! We talked about how hard it is in the U.S. to really do something different. Everyone wants to, but at the end of the day our culture just doesn't support it. In my opinion (John Commoner talking here, not Joel Karr) we still have too much of a Puritan conformist streak to really let ourselves go for it. The so called Silent Majority, for lack of a better term, has a way of quietly discouraging that. We all know we're supposed to cut our grass, and keep our house looking the right way. Nobody wants to be that character in the neighborhood that everyone is whispering about. I think a lot of architects, like Joel, want to see that change. It's in their nature. I hope they succeed.

I asked Joel what his ideal client would be. "Do they have the imagination?" was his response. He's looking for someone who is willing to do something really different. He remarked that lots of architects do concept sketches to satisfy their need to build. Karr prefers not to do that, so as not to limit his clients' imaginations. "My outlet is to shake people out of their complacency."

This is not a contest where Karr will select just one winner. "I'm willing to do as many as come my way if people are serious." Karr is looking for people who have land, and who can show a financial commitment (he isn't going to do a design for free, then not see it built). And he really wants a site in a rural area, where it is easier to work through the permit process for something so unique as a container house, and where the site and surroundings will provide him with more freedom to explore the design possibilities of such a unique system of building.

Karr is ready to go green to, very green. So all comers, be ready to talk about alternative energy. "I'd love to do one completely off the grid," said Karr. Of course, he noted that whatever he does will be in the best interests of the site and the client's desires. But he wants someone with an open mind who is willing to explore green design with him.

I'd love to take him up on his challenge. I want something as different as Joel is describing, but my wife and I are still a few years away from starting our dream home. But I'm sure some of my readers must be ready, and for those of you who are I really encourage you to get in touch with Joel and talk to him about it. It was a great pleasure speaking with him today. I could hear his enthusiasm and I got really excited listening to him talk about sea container homes. It could be a unique way to get a great design at a bargain rate. It's worth checking out.

You can e-mail him at joel@group41inc.com (please, serious inquiries only) or follow the general contact info listed on the Group 41 website.