Postcard from Seattle, Birthplace of Modular Home Design

As Robert Humble prepares for his commute to work, he often slips in his earbuds and selects a podcast to saturate his 30-minute walk with background noise. The Pacific Northwest transplant was born in Texas. He remembers the unforgiving heat of the southern United States, and he tells me he will never take walking to work for granted.

“I used to have to drive to work for 40 minutes. I’d get to work and I would be so stressed out,” he said. “That is the lifestyle I didn’t want.”

The architect said he looks forward to his often rainy strolls to work, passing by the homes crafted by Hybrid Architecture, the Seattle architecture firm that he founded and where he is the design principal.

On his walks through the city, Humble enjoys observing the evolution of his company’s home designs over the years. The modular and fixed housing units aim to repurpose and reuse materials to minimize environmental impact while meeting a need for housing and building structures that adapt to evolving resident or community needs over the course of life.

Humble founded Hybrid Architecture with business partner and fellow architect Joel Egan. It was initially established as a competition team in 2003 for a contest hosted by the non-profit organization Allied Arts, which showcased concepts to create a sustainable housing model for Seattle’s waterfront.

The goal was to study what new buildings should be developed along the Seattle waterfront after the Alaskan Way Viaduct was severely damaged by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake and scheduled for demolition.

To add to the project’s complexity, the city had leased a shipping terminal on the waterfront to Hanjin, a South Korean shipping company, for over 20 years.

The City of Seattle was considering keeping it as a shipping container terminal. And Humble recalls there were talks among developers about the prospect of developing large highrises in that part of the city. He and Egan worked with the city’s historian and John C. Garcia, director of the University of Washington’s center for urban ecology, plus a handful of artists and landscape architects.

“We never thought that was a successful way of developing a neighbourhood. I think a neighbourhood should be able to evolve over centuries, not decades,” Humble said. “That’s where you get a real mix of uses, diversity, income and building types.”

Humble developed a proposal that he felt better encompassed his values. “We proposed building ‘Cargotown,’ I would call it, out of shipping containers,” he recalls, noting that the shipping containers would refer to the site’s past use as a shipping terminal.

Assembled from containers at Terminal 46, Humble and Egan’s concept for an industrial neighbourhood was brought together through the formation of the contest team. Rather than selecting a winner, the competition intended to showcase innovative ideas. This allowed their team to brainstorm easy adaptation methods to changing space and housing needs. And it changed the trajectory of their careers and led to the formation of Hybrid Architecture.

Early forays into eco-conscious design

Humble’s business partner Egan coined the term “cargotecture” to describe what they were making: building systems made entirely or partially from international shipping containers that meet the standards set out by the International Organization for Standardization, which is why these containers are often referred to as “ISO shipping containers.” Despite not being a novel concept, shipping containers had a resurgence in the architectural realm in the early 2000s.

So began an early blueprint for a new concept: “cargotowns,” or communities crafted using modular shipping containers. This approach seeks to reshape urban spaces by reducing construction costs, waste and environmental impact while providing adaptable living spaces.

Early writings on the concept include some from Japanese postwar Metabolist architects like Arata Isozaki, who during the 1950s and ’60s sought to combine nature with construction plans for megastructures, often incorporating Marxist ideologies and living systems that introduced organic population growth.

Other leaders in shipping-container design include architect Adam Kalkin, who designed a seven-storey structure constructed from 50 per cent recycled shipping containers in Salt Lake City in 2010.

Humble and Egan began working together to further develop the concept of designing detachable living spaces that can be stacked on top of each other like Lego blocks.

They referred to this concept as “adaptive density,” which refers to the detachable nature of the container units. Adaptive density allows for incremental development, which grants builders the option to add density organically or rapidly, depending on needs, rather than constructing an entire building or neighbourhood all at once.

Cargotowns are typically built to attract residents and businesses at a gradual or rapid pace. As an area gets busier, a temporary cargotown can be taken apart and set up in a new area to meet the changing needs of people and land uses.

The business duo began designing speculative cargo container buildings, garnering significant interest and media coverage despite initially having no clients. The public was interested in Humble and Egan’s approach to energy-conscious design, a new idea gaining traction in early 2000s Washington.

Between 2004 and 2007, Humble and Egan worked on designing and reconfiguring container projects before landing a paying client.

In the winter of 2007, the pair stumbled upon an opportunity to guest star on a television program created by the Seattle Home and Garden Show, a biannual home show that features hundreds of exhibits and seminars. The producers were interested in touring one of the container projects, although there was one problem.

“We didn’t have any built yet,” said Humble. “So we convinced them to film us building the project instead.”

His main goal was to keep the company’s construction and development arms small to maintain control and avoid overextension. It was a lesson Humble learned from the impact of the 2007 recession on small developers looking to build in the Pacific Northwest.

Using donated containers and materials from the Port of Seattle, the team constructed a single modular “cargo home” and then relocated it to a wooded area for a photo shoot against a natural backdrop. After sharing some of the images online, the home attracted the attention of a Seattle Post-Intelligencer architecture critic, who subsequently wrote an article about their endeavour.

The team’s work caught the attention of the CEO of one of Seattle’s largest development corporations, Unicode. Co-founder Mark Davis was inspired by their attention to detail. This led to their recruitment for a modular construction process project, marking the official establishment and launch of the company known today as Hybrid Architecture.

“Just over three years in, we finally had a major paying client,” said Humble. “We started Hybrid with firmly grounded values of sustainability and urban density.”

Their work with shipping containers was a stepping-stone to broader modular construction. They were slowly garnering buzz as leaders in cargotecture in Washington. They began to discuss their work with general contractors about potentially factory-built components and on-site assembly to mitigate shipping costs.

This idea led them to form a second company, Hybrid Assembly, a general contracting business for modular buildings, and another development arm called Hybrid Development. Seeking more control over their projects, the two also began developing, buying and designing land and building units themselves.

Humble has successfully designed several communities that blend traditional building materials with shipping containers.

Located at 612 S. Lucile St. in Georgetown, Seattle, one mini cargotown, completed in 2009, features two commercial buildings: the rear building serves as office space for a construction company, while the front building is home to a non-profit organization.

This front building provides training spaces for those studying green civil infrastructure while also supplying lodging for students.

This innovative approach reflects Humble’s and Egan’s valuation of environmental sustainability and their urbanist vision for density that supports people across different walks of life. Their designs seek to foster gradual growth by creating social and communal spaces for residents that encourage interaction and collaboration between businesses and homeowners.

By combining a diverse mix of uses, these designs can enhance community resilience, support local economies and create a sense of belonging to an interconnected community.

“On the one hand, we want to have something that's very sustainable from an environmental standpoint,” said Humble. “But we also want to have something that is sustainable from an economic and social standpoint.”

Sustainable neighbourhoods

Humble has initiated housing projects that utilize modular cargo homes for temporary occupancy, offering housing or other applications like flexible community spaces, affordable living and pop-up businesses. His goal is to maximize the utility of otherwise underutilized urban land, allowing these homes to be easily removed and relocated as needed.

Over the past 15 years, he and his team have been focused on developing projects in Seattle. They are currently working on a “missing middle” project, a medium-density housing project that aims to address the need for diverse, affordable housing for baby boomers and millennials.

Next on the list is a co-living project in Pioneer Square, which will bring a communal living project to the downtown Seattle neighbourhood. This project ties into Hybrid Architecture’s recent focus on "Flex Houses," a concept that is built to adapt to changing lifestyles.

These townhouses have a ground floor that can serve various purposes, including functioning as a home office or extra living space. The homes, with their separate entry, bathroom and kitchen, offer economic flexibility by allowing use for home offices, rental apartments or commercial spaces.

Many of the spaces were adapted by homeowners to be used as classrooms for primary school children during the height of social distancing in the early pandemic years.

The estimated cost of these units in 2003 ranged from $120 to $140 per square foot. In 2018, the units cost around $220 per square foot. The present-day rate for the modular housing unit is between $260 and $360 per square foot.

Today, the units are shipped for free to most of the United States and offer complete delivery with heating, lighting and appliances. They also offer the installation of accessory dwelling units in just a day.

Adaptability is key

Humble sees these homes as catering to a growing demographic of homeowners who might expect to move house more frequently over the course of their lives due to job mobility and shifting economic conditions.

“I think at least in that typology of the townhouses, people kind of see a house kind of as a short-term investment. They’re gonna live in it for five years,” he said. This presents a contrast to how he and his peers grew up. “When I was growing up, my parents lived in the same house for 30 years.”

For Humble, adaptability is a key feature of the homes he builds with Hybrid Architecture. They have the potential to evolve with homeowners’ changing circumstances over time.

With these ideas, Humble hopes to change developers’ approach to incorporating communal living into urban areas. Rather than focusing on short-term profit, he wants to create neighbourhoods that consider the well-being of residents and the impact on the environment for years to come.

He added that at its core, Hybrid Architecture’s leading objective is to tackle the housing affordability crisis by constructing more financially accessible units. Humble places great importance on outdoor spaces, emphasizing that these areas are as vital as the buildings themselves in fostering a sense of community.

Humble acknowledges that his and Egan’s contributions to the cargotecture concept are significant, but he admits that navigating the balance between innovation and economic viability has had its challenges. To address this, he is targeting more affordable lands in south Seattle that can attract a young, creative demographic — people who might otherwise be priced out of urban living. However, he hopes to reach other underserved groups with his projects, including aging populations and families seeking community-oriented housing.

While the escalating costs associated with square footage have slowed the expansion of their projects, Humble and his team remain committed to exploring ways to make modular and fixed housing units more affordable. His vision includes spaces that accommodate new living and working lifestyles, such as designs tailored toward work-from-home arrangements and multi-generational living, which he believes are crucial for the future of communal urban life.

The company has built several thousand units using hybrid and traditional housing methods. Additionally, the four to six original structures created for the initial Cargotown concept have stood the test of time, demonstrating the durability and economic appeal of cargotecture.

Hybrid Architecture received an American Institute of Architects Honor Award in 2019, along with numerous specific project-based awards, highlighting its commitment to providing design solutions that promote a more sustainable and salubrious built environment.

Population growth, evolving family structures, constrained financial resources and increased longevity have expanded the company’s focus on community activation for a wide range of people, from younger professionals to aging populations.

Hybrid Architecture sets itself apart from other developers by focusing on enhancing quality of life, committing to environmental sustainability and utilizing upcycled materials. This reinforces their belief that communal living goes beyond housing: it’s about creating spaces where people can thrive together.

“That's what, in our mind, builds a healthy, more livable community,” Humble said.

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[Editor’s note: This article runs in a new section of The Tyee called ‘What Works: The Business of a Healthy Bioregion,’ where you’ll find profiles of people creating the low-carbon, regenerative economy we need from Alaska to central California. Find out more about this project and its funders, Magic Canoe and the Salmon Nation Trust.]