NIGERIA-CONTAINER HOUSING Nigerian company converts used shipping containers into homes

Record ID: 160901

  • Title: NIGERIA-CONTAINER HOUSING Nigerian company converts used shipping containers into homes
  • Date: 2nd April 2015
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CONSTRUCTION WORKERS / CONTRACTOR, STANLEY CHUKWUMA SUPERVISING WORKMEN (SOUNDBITE) (English) CONTRACTOR, STANLEY CHUKWUMA SAYING: "If you want to be wise, you go for concrete house, if you want to be wise. The concrete house, I…, I can tell you that some generations cannot meet caravan. Go to Idumuta today, you'll see old houses about 200 years they are there. Generations to come, may not meet your own caravan, your children's children may not meet it." STREET SCENES VARIOUS OF TRADER, KUDIRATU MUDASHIRU, IN HER STORE SNACKS AND SWEETS ON DISPLAY (SOUNDBITE) (Yoruba) TRADER, KUDIRATU MUDASHIRU, SAYING: "This container belongs to me. It would have been more expensive if i had rented it. This property belongs to my mother, but if this container is converted to a house, I will rent and live in it provided there won't be any problem." (SOUNDBITE) (English) LAGOS RESIDENT, OLUWALE SEYI SAYING: "Me, I cannot stay inside the iron house because it will look like somehow to me, because, if my visitor or if my family see me inside that kind of house, it's like, It will be like that I'm not okay at all."
  • Embargoed: 17th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5YIQ0Z3UJVVAODYW3BM4GBRMW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: In a bid to fill the real estate shortfall in Nigeria a Lagos construction company is using old shipping containers to create new and cheaper spaces.
    Construction is ongoing at several sites in Lagos, the commercial capital.
    Although steel rods, wood and roofing sheets are used, there are almost no traditional building materials like bricks or concrete.
    Tempohousing Nigeria is a cargotecture solutions company that is behind the projects.
    Construction of an average two-bedroom house costs about two million naira (10,100 U.S. dollars) and can be completed in just seven days.
    Dele Ladipo is a managing partner at Tempohousing. He says faster construction and delivery times are one of the attractions for customers.
    "Our solution, compared to traditional concrete is about 25-30 percent cheaper than if you build the same structure using concrete. So, light for light, let's assume you use the same internal finishing materials, same sort of tiles, same sort of electrical sanitary wares and the likes, the key thing is that it is achieved a lot quicker to implement as well. The same structure will take us several weeks, compared to several months if you built with concrete," says Ladipo.
    To make the homes more comfortable in the city's high tropical temperatures, insulators are used to pad the panels of the container walls.
    Ladipo says that, although the bulk of their customers are corporate clients and hotels, there has been growing interest from residential property clients.
    "We found that also, the African mentality is changing a little bit, the cost of housing, cost of land is so much now that everyone is looking for an alternative option, so, we feel that the demand, on the demand side, the supply is so restricted that there is an avenue for alternate technologies to playing, and we feel, we haven't even scratch the surface at all," he added.
    Africa's largest economy is battling a range of housing issues from poor mortgage facilities to expensive bank loans and landlords who demand up to five years rent in advance from tenants.
    In Lagos, for instance, housing experts say the commercial city needs more than 15 million units to adequately house its teeming population expected to hit the 25 million mark in 2025.
    Two thirds of Lagosians live in what are effectively slums, with no reliable electricity or water.
    But not everyone has embraced the new container housing. Stanley Chukwuma, a contractor, appreciates the innovation but questions the new buildings' longevity.
    "If you want to be wise, you go for concrete house, if you want to be wise," he said.
    On the streets of Lagos, shipping containers are often used by small-scale traders for shops and salons.
    Trader Kudiratu Mudashiru has been selling snacks and drinks in her container shop for more than three years. She says she would be happy to live in a house built with containers.
    "This container belongs to me. It would have been more expensive if I had rented it. This property belongs to my mother, but if this container is converted to a house, I will rent and live in it provided there won't be any problem," she said.
    Fellow resident Oluwale Seyi was less keen. "Me, I cannot stay inside the iron house because It will look like somehow to me, because, if my visitor or if my family see me inside that kind of house, it's like, It will be like that I'm not okay at all," he said.
    Nigeria is often touted as an example of the 'Africa Rising' narrative, with its growing middle-class who can afford to buy or rent houses and apartments.
    Yet the country does need to find more viable and innovative housing solutions to cater for all its population.
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