I've been doing a little bit of research on shipping containers. And I'm just throwing out this question... why salvage the structure?
Looking here for recent examples, it seems quite a bit of new container-based projects are becoming less and less container. But there seems to be a common theme here is, while these containers are chopped up and cladded over, that their structures are more or less intact.
Wouldn't it make more sense to cut out metal panels from the sides of these containers to use as cladding and roofing over a custom-made, insulated and properly enveloped structure rather than trying to adapt reinforcement, enveloping and insulation to a shipping container?
It seems that the relatively standardized corrugated steel would be easier to recycle than structural component of a shipping container.
dia
Jul 17, 11 6:09 pm
Yeah,
The shipping container is an inappropriate medium for habitable architecture, because to get anything of 'architectural' merit, you pretty much have to start again. The structural integrity disappears once you start chopping it up, the dimensions shrink to allow for insulation etc.
However, one of the key benefits of a container is that it is easy for architects and the general public, clients etc. to visualize a converted container as a habitable space. And that's probably about it.
zonker
Jul 17, 11 8:26 pm
Here is a project from one of my professors, and 2 of my former classmates in San Diego
Dia, I assumed that's what the allure was. And this might apply to that project Suverk.
I think one of the issues that I have with container projects is the width. Eight feet to me is about the perfect width. However, being on the more conservative side, if we subtract the 10" (5" from each side) all we're left with is a 'habitat' a scant 7'2" wide. Technically, 7' 6" is the internal width minus an additional 10" would give us 6'8".
The issue with this is I have with this is accessibility. Throw in a 36" minimum path from front to back and you're left with approximately 3'8" of usable space which isn't a whole lot. And if you maximize the use of that space 100%, that means at the front, middle and back of the container, you're going to have to devote about 20 square-feet of space for turn around points.
So out of the 293 square-feet per unit, 177 square-feet would be (60%) used solely for circulation. That to me seems incredibly inefficient. A 20' by 20' hut with an accessible bathroom, 360 net square-feet would provide around 212 square-feet for circulation (58%) if every possible usable wall was utilized.
Jason Muller
Jul 18, 11 1:11 pm
Wow, My brother Keith Muller is a Thesis Level Professor at San Diego's New School of Architecture, Designer at RNT Architects and He also Is involved in San Diego's Periscope Project. I have never been more amazed by a post shipping container development. The Periscope Gang consists of Architects, Builders, Artists and Educators. After Keith's volunteer work on the construction and design of this development he has his own container! He uses 25% of it to set up his Drum set to jam with local Musicians in his spare time, uses another 25% percent for his offices he uses for his professorship and architectural work and the final 50% he uses for pin up space, yes pin up space! It have full electrical out lets, hardwood floors and windows for natural defused sun lighting. As A social venue, they use the court yard (center room with no ceiling) for Art shows, Indie Video premiers and summer studio classes that are offered to high school students! Like us all we have seen every design possible in architecture school but this is the real deal and it functions amazing!
MixmasterFestus
Jul 18, 11 2:37 pm
I think most of these shipping-container projects use several of them locked together somehow, so this takes care of some of the 'narrowness' issues. There's a guy in my town who is building one of these houses and uses about nine of them locked together to make a building that looks like it's about three stories tall. I assume that involves some kind of structural weakening in the middle due to cutting out some substantial portion of the 'shared walls' of the containers, but the corners/outer edges may have some semblance of the original structural integrity (if they're not full of fenestration holes, or if they're properly reinforced). IIRC, the weight of the container is carried on its corners, so it might not be as bad as it could be.
I always thought the height was a bigger limitation than the width when using a shipping container module. Standard shipping containers can limit your ceiling heights when finishing out the ceiling/floor, to say nothing of running ductwork, plumbing, or other building services within the container. There are extended-height shipping containers, but I'm not sure how much extra room you'd wind up getting when you're done finishing it out.
I'd like to see more projects where the container is not the entire house, since their dimensions match up fairly well with other materials' modules. They could make good modular bathroom/kitchen/service cores, for example, if they're stacked (maybe with a little extra space between the floors for building services) and spaced out. More traditional building methods could be used to flesh out habitable space between the stacks.
That said, wasn't shipping container architecture a byproduct of the heady days of the mid-aughts, when there were a lot of leftover shipping containers accumulating in the US due to a massive trade imbalance? I wonder how much this still applies.
J. James R.
Jul 18, 11 3:11 pm
@mixmaster... I had thought about height considerations since finished height of a container would be about 7' and a few inches. But for sake of conversation, I was ignoring that point. I was also making the basic assumption that having slightly wider walls (a full 5" versus ~4 9/16") would give you more flexibility when it comes to insulation and services like an extra layer of rigid insulation or a mini-duct system.
One of the things though I'm not sure how would one get around would be plumbing when it comes to little things. For instance, running pipes for a sink in a kitchenette wouldn't be too difficult but it would eat up some extra inches to get around that whole food contamination thing. And when you're dealing with 6'8" of space, 2-3" becomes a lot.
The reason I bring up cutting the shipping containers apart to make tiles out of them is that most shipping containers are made out of Cor-Ten or some variety of weathering steel.
At approximately $1.20-$1.50 a square foot (not counting the labor), shipping container steel is considerably cheap... like asphalt shingle cheap.
MixmasterFestus
Jul 18, 11 4:02 pm
Not only is it cheap; it's in convenient modules! I think the reinforcing struts occur every 5' or so, but the side panels are in nice divisible-by-4'-8'-ish dimensions for minimal loss.
Also, would putting enough concrete down on the corrugated metal floor/ceiling segments get you a part of Type I construction? Or is the decking not able to be used this way?
From the looks of the links you posted, it seems like a lot of people are doing what you say in spirit (if not necessarily overtly stated). When stuff is cut out of the container, it seems to be cut in nice neat modules. I wonder what happens to the leftovers?
MixmasterFestus
Jul 18, 11 4:11 pm
Wow, okay. Hunching over computer code has destroyed my ability to verbally communicate, somehow (or at least review comments before posting).
Rather...from your link, people seem to be cutting out whole segments of the shipping container in sizes that could be used as some kind of panel. However, I don't really see that many extra panels in other parts of their project. I wonder if the leftovers are discarded somewhere?
Also, I would bet that a significant part of the strength of the container comes from the gigantic metal beams/tubes/whatever that form the edges of the container. These may also be another good (and jiving-with-existing-construction-modules) source of material that could be repurposed into something else. I would guess that a part of the rationale of keeping the existing module is that you already have that framework intact.
J. James R.
Jul 18, 11 4:41 pm
From what I understand, there really isn't a standard for container construction. But in most containers, it's the actual walls that hold the container apart because not only does a container have to support weight while stacked, the container also has to fight deflection and buckling while being moved. It also has to be able to handle torsion and lateral loads are various stages.
It's really just not possible to to do that with a rectilinear structure comprised of only 8 "beams." So, while they're keeping the shape and most of the shipping container intact, it kind of defeats the purpose of recycling them. Even cutting holes in the sides for windows undermines how a shipping container maintains structural soundness — I often view schemes involving transporting finished units bunk.
Unless of course, you're reinforcing these holes with steel frames themselves can easily cost more than the entire container.
jess123
Jul 18, 11 7:04 pm
where are these containers coming from
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 18, 11 8:32 pm
I confess, I worked on container buildings. I can't recall anything redeeming about them other than the novelty. There I go being blunt again, sorry.
He also links to that Sunset Mag '11 Idea's House, a mini-container project penciling out to about $300psf....
Orhan Ayyüce
Jul 18, 11 9:56 pm
but, if you are a big artist like lawrence weiner is, you take the truck frames and make a luxury residence and stay within the territories of your conceptual art, make a great statement and a place to live and work. a bit fetishistic but well done nevertheless. ditto for luxury shipping containers.. lo-tek..
i always thought the best way to do this would be approaching the container manufacturers and solve all the problems there. of course that requires finding an investor and selling the idea that many people would love to live in shipping container inspired dimensions and configurations thereof and investment money would easily return with favorable profits.
otherwise, here is your torch and get to it until you get it habitable under the mambo sun. there are some really good examples already for $60K base models of this... does it worth it or what else you can get for that much to live in? that is a tough sell to an investor, unless they are recycling and green socialites with a nice piece of lot somewhere.
MixmasterFestus
Jul 18, 11 10:43 pm
Containers are a weird middle ground between modular prefab houses and a raw building material, which is kind of neat as an idea. They still take some finishing, but are still sort of building-like on their own. I think this idea could be interesting if it were applied to other building material/types, at other scales.
Re: the structural issue - aren't these things designed to fall off of ocean liners from hundreds of feet up? Unless you plan on constructing buildings that you can juggle, I'd imagine that there is probably quite a bit of 'give' in the structural requirements if you're just handling gravity loads with some occasional lateral force.
From what I understand, in their 'natural habitat', these things stack on top of each other with the loads occurring on the corners, with 'pins' that hold them together for the purposes of shipping. (Note the following photo: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-48225844/stock-photo-cargo-container-stack.html , where you can see gaps between the things. In this photo, the load seems to be supported through the corners.) Thus, the floor (or wall, or ceiling, depending on how the container rolls) would only be holding part of the load at a time rather than the whole load, plus the load of all the containers above it. The load transfers to the beams that make the edges, which is then transferred to the vertical supports.
In this case, it seems like the outer frame is holding most of the load, with the corrugated surface mostly there for lateral reinforcement (plus, to support however many pounds per square foot you'd normally be expected to place in a shipping container). You could cut quite a bit of that away and still have the frame function structurally for the purposes of a building (again, assuming you're keeping these in one orientation and neither throwing these off a boat nor attempting to twist one end while holding the other end in place). This is good, because you could actually take quite a bit of material off and use it elsewhere.
(Suppose I should get back to studying for the Structures ARE!)
MixmasterFestus
Jul 18, 11 10:47 pm
Google also provides the following, which could be of interest when discussing the limits of the unit as a whole.
Ryan002
Jul 19, 11 2:42 am
Heh. This reminds me of my stint in the Air Force. We moved to a new camp that was still under construction, so we used converted shipping containers as offices.
They cut windows into them and stuck air-conditioners in them. Because the bunks were crowded and too far to walk, we'd sometimes sleep in the makeshift offices. It was actually really nice. Some empty crates for seats, a plankboard table, and we could play carroms or board games all night. After we salvaged a discarded sofa, it was a little haven in the corner of the camp.
The only thing is, they groan and creak a lot at night. I don't just mean a bit. I mean the sound could actually wake you up.
tagalong
Jul 19, 11 11:56 am
I didn't read through the posts, so this may already have been mentioned but thought I remembered reading somewhere that it makes more sense to use shipping containers that were used for refrigerated goods because they 1. already have fully integrated insulation, and 2. are 12" taller, so you get a 9' space instead of an 8' space.....this is all unconfirmed however.
HC (high cube) containers go up to 10-1/2 ft tall. They also make custom containers that are as long as 53' and as wide as 12', but those are rare and add a lot to transportation costs.
MixmasterFestus is correct - corrugated steel panels are not load bearing - cutting openings for windows, doors, AC is a common practice. Loaded containers can be stacked 7 units tall without extra support structure, even taller if unloaded, see this 9-tall building:
tagalong - refrigerated containers, or reefers, are considerably more expensive because of the factory-installed specialized equipment.
Container-based structures are more valuable if modules are kept as standard as possible, to take advantage of the mobility. Of course that isn't as creatively inspiring.
J. James R.
Aug 9, 11 1:01 pm
MixmasterFestus is correct - corrugated steel panels are not load bearing.
Oh yeah.
5 shipping containers at full weight = 336,000 lbs
Not including any safety factors, I seriously doubt 4 4" box columns could support that weight. Even at empty weight, that's pushing it.
J. James R.
Aug 9, 11 1:04 pm
I didn't even go to architecture school and I know this.jpg
237ele
Apr 14, 14 5:07 pm
Hello, I am an Italian architect and would like to know which permissions are used to build a house with the container. thanks
wurdan freo
Apr 14, 14 6:29 pm
That would be the International Residential Shipping Container Code. You should be able to find it on Dwell's website.
reefercontainer
Aug 8, 15 11:06 pm
http://www.emergeindustries.com.sg is proposing a product that can be built in or retrofitted to reefer or refrigerated container to enhance the protection of Reefer Cargo.
Summary
Reefer Flood Preventer (Brand Name: RapiDrain)
RapiDrain is new kind of Reefer Flood Preventer (RFP) that is inspired by everyday experience. It is used to prevent flooding of reefer containers which may lead to damage of reefer cargo by inhibiting clogging to the drain holes.
Reefer Flood Preventer
In order to prevent the build up of excess water, it is crucial to ensure that the reefer container drain holes is not clogged. This can be achieved by installing RapiDrain over the reefer container drain holes to prevent clogging and allow excess water to be drained off rapidly, thus preventing damage to the cargo and the container.
I've been doing a little bit of research on shipping containers. And I'm just throwing out this question... why salvage the structure?
Looking here for recent examples, it seems quite a bit of new container-based projects are becoming less and less container. But there seems to be a common theme here is, while these containers are chopped up and cladded over, that their structures are more or less intact.
Wouldn't it make more sense to cut out metal panels from the sides of these containers to use as cladding and roofing over a custom-made, insulated and properly enveloped structure rather than trying to adapt reinforcement, enveloping and insulation to a shipping container?
It seems that the relatively standardized corrugated steel would be easier to recycle than structural component of a shipping container.
Yeah,
The shipping container is an inappropriate medium for habitable architecture, because to get anything of 'architectural' merit, you pretty much have to start again. The structural integrity disappears once you start chopping it up, the dimensions shrink to allow for insulation etc.
However, one of the key benefits of a container is that it is easy for architects and the general public, clients etc. to visualize a converted container as a habitable space. And that's probably about it.
Here is a project from one of my professors, and 2 of my former classmates in San Diego
http://theperiscopeproject.org/home.html
Dia, I assumed that's what the allure was. And this might apply to that project Suverk.
I think one of the issues that I have with container projects is the width. Eight feet to me is about the perfect width. However, being on the more conservative side, if we subtract the 10" (5" from each side) all we're left with is a 'habitat' a scant 7'2" wide. Technically, 7' 6" is the internal width minus an additional 10" would give us 6'8".
The issue with this is I have with this is accessibility. Throw in a 36" minimum path from front to back and you're left with approximately 3'8" of usable space which isn't a whole lot. And if you maximize the use of that space 100%, that means at the front, middle and back of the container, you're going to have to devote about 20 square-feet of space for turn around points.
So out of the 293 square-feet per unit, 177 square-feet would be (60%) used solely for circulation. That to me seems incredibly inefficient. A 20' by 20' hut with an accessible bathroom, 360 net square-feet would provide around 212 square-feet for circulation (58%) if every possible usable wall was utilized.
Wow, My brother Keith Muller is a Thesis Level Professor at San Diego's New School of Architecture, Designer at RNT Architects and He also Is involved in San Diego's Periscope Project. I have never been more amazed by a post shipping container development. The Periscope Gang consists of Architects, Builders, Artists and Educators. After Keith's volunteer work on the construction and design of this development he has his own container! He uses 25% of it to set up his Drum set to jam with local Musicians in his spare time, uses another 25% percent for his offices he uses for his professorship and architectural work and the final 50% he uses for pin up space, yes pin up space! It have full electrical out lets, hardwood floors and windows for natural defused sun lighting. As A social venue, they use the court yard (center room with no ceiling) for Art shows, Indie Video premiers and summer studio classes that are offered to high school students! Like us all we have seen every design possible in architecture school but this is the real deal and it functions amazing!
I think most of these shipping-container projects use several of them locked together somehow, so this takes care of some of the 'narrowness' issues. There's a guy in my town who is building one of these houses and uses about nine of them locked together to make a building that looks like it's about three stories tall. I assume that involves some kind of structural weakening in the middle due to cutting out some substantial portion of the 'shared walls' of the containers, but the corners/outer edges may have some semblance of the original structural integrity (if they're not full of fenestration holes, or if they're properly reinforced). IIRC, the weight of the container is carried on its corners, so it might not be as bad as it could be.
I always thought the height was a bigger limitation than the width when using a shipping container module. Standard shipping containers can limit your ceiling heights when finishing out the ceiling/floor, to say nothing of running ductwork, plumbing, or other building services within the container. There are extended-height shipping containers, but I'm not sure how much extra room you'd wind up getting when you're done finishing it out.
I'd like to see more projects where the container is not the entire house, since their dimensions match up fairly well with other materials' modules. They could make good modular bathroom/kitchen/service cores, for example, if they're stacked (maybe with a little extra space between the floors for building services) and spaced out. More traditional building methods could be used to flesh out habitable space between the stacks.
That said, wasn't shipping container architecture a byproduct of the heady days of the mid-aughts, when there were a lot of leftover shipping containers accumulating in the US due to a massive trade imbalance? I wonder how much this still applies.
@mixmaster... I had thought about height considerations since finished height of a container would be about 7' and a few inches. But for sake of conversation, I was ignoring that point. I was also making the basic assumption that having slightly wider walls (a full 5" versus ~4 9/16") would give you more flexibility when it comes to insulation and services like an extra layer of rigid insulation or a mini-duct system.
One of the things though I'm not sure how would one get around would be plumbing when it comes to little things. For instance, running pipes for a sink in a kitchenette wouldn't be too difficult but it would eat up some extra inches to get around that whole food contamination thing. And when you're dealing with 6'8" of space, 2-3" becomes a lot.
The reason I bring up cutting the shipping containers apart to make tiles out of them is that most shipping containers are made out of Cor-Ten or some variety of weathering steel.
At approximately $1.20-$1.50 a square foot (not counting the labor), shipping container steel is considerably cheap... like asphalt shingle cheap.
Not only is it cheap; it's in convenient modules! I think the reinforcing struts occur every 5' or so, but the side panels are in nice divisible-by-4'-8'-ish dimensions for minimal loss.
Also, would putting enough concrete down on the corrugated metal floor/ceiling segments get you a part of Type I construction? Or is the decking not able to be used this way?
From the looks of the links you posted, it seems like a lot of people are doing what you say in spirit (if not necessarily overtly stated). When stuff is cut out of the container, it seems to be cut in nice neat modules. I wonder what happens to the leftovers?
Wow, okay. Hunching over computer code has destroyed my ability to verbally communicate, somehow (or at least review comments before posting).
Rather...from your link, people seem to be cutting out whole segments of the shipping container in sizes that could be used as some kind of panel. However, I don't really see that many extra panels in other parts of their project. I wonder if the leftovers are discarded somewhere?
Also, I would bet that a significant part of the strength of the container comes from the gigantic metal beams/tubes/whatever that form the edges of the container. These may also be another good (and jiving-with-existing-construction-modules) source of material that could be repurposed into something else. I would guess that a part of the rationale of keeping the existing module is that you already have that framework intact.
From what I understand, there really isn't a standard for container construction. But in most containers, it's the actual walls that hold the container apart because not only does a container have to support weight while stacked, the container also has to fight deflection and buckling while being moved. It also has to be able to handle torsion and lateral loads are various stages.
It's really just not possible to to do that with a rectilinear structure comprised of only 8 "beams." So, while they're keeping the shape and most of the shipping container intact, it kind of defeats the purpose of recycling them. Even cutting holes in the sides for windows undermines how a shipping container maintains structural soundness — I often view schemes involving transporting finished units bunk.
Unless of course, you're reinforcing these holes with steel frames themselves can easily cost more than the entire container.
where are these containers coming from
I confess, I worked on container buildings. I can't recall anything redeeming about them other than the novelty. There I go being blunt again, sorry.
I field most of our cold-calls with bullet points that are real similar to what that Preston dude lists here: http://www.jetsongreen.com/2010/02/ten-things-consider-shipping-container-projects.html
He also links to that Sunset Mag '11 Idea's House, a mini-container project penciling out to about $300psf....
but, if you are a big artist like lawrence weiner is, you take the truck frames and make a luxury residence and stay within the territories of your conceptual art, make a great statement and a place to live and work. a bit fetishistic but well done nevertheless. ditto for luxury shipping containers.. lo-tek..
i always thought the best way to do this would be approaching the container manufacturers and solve all the problems there. of course that requires finding an investor and selling the idea that many people would love to live in shipping container inspired dimensions and configurations thereof and investment money would easily return with favorable profits.
otherwise, here is your torch and get to it until you get it habitable under the mambo sun. there are some really good examples already for $60K base models of this... does it worth it or what else you can get for that much to live in? that is a tough sell to an investor, unless they are recycling and green socialites with a nice piece of lot somewhere.
Containers are a weird middle ground between modular prefab houses and a raw building material, which is kind of neat as an idea. They still take some finishing, but are still sort of building-like on their own. I think this idea could be interesting if it were applied to other building material/types, at other scales.
Re: the structural issue - aren't these things designed to fall off of ocean liners from hundreds of feet up? Unless you plan on constructing buildings that you can juggle, I'd imagine that there is probably quite a bit of 'give' in the structural requirements if you're just handling gravity loads with some occasional lateral force.
From what I understand, in their 'natural habitat', these things stack on top of each other with the loads occurring on the corners, with 'pins' that hold them together for the purposes of shipping. (Note the following photo: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-48225844/stock-photo-cargo-container-stack.html , where you can see gaps between the things. In this photo, the load seems to be supported through the corners.) Thus, the floor (or wall, or ceiling, depending on how the container rolls) would only be holding part of the load at a time rather than the whole load, plus the load of all the containers above it. The load transfers to the beams that make the edges, which is then transferred to the vertical supports.
In this case, it seems like the outer frame is holding most of the load, with the corrugated surface mostly there for lateral reinforcement (plus, to support however many pounds per square foot you'd normally be expected to place in a shipping container). You could cut quite a bit of that away and still have the frame function structurally for the purposes of a building (again, assuming you're keeping these in one orientation and neither throwing these off a boat nor attempting to twist one end while holding the other end in place). This is good, because you could actually take quite a bit of material off and use it elsewhere.
(Suppose I should get back to studying for the Structures ARE!)
Google also provides the following, which could be of interest when discussing the limits of the unit as a whole.
Heh. This reminds me of my stint in the Air Force. We moved to a new camp that was still under construction, so we used converted shipping containers as offices.
They cut windows into them and stuck air-conditioners in them. Because the bunks were crowded and too far to walk, we'd sometimes sleep in the makeshift offices. It was actually really nice. Some empty crates for seats, a plankboard table, and we could play carroms or board games all night. After we salvaged a discarded sofa, it was a little haven in the corner of the camp.
The only thing is, they groan and creak a lot at night. I don't just mean a bit. I mean the sound could actually wake you up.
I didn't read through the posts, so this may already have been mentioned but thought I remembered reading somewhere that it makes more sense to use shipping containers that were used for refrigerated goods because they 1. already have fully integrated insulation, and 2. are 12" taller, so you get a 9' space instead of an 8' space.....this is all unconfirmed however.
check out their work
http://www.lot-ek.com/
A few things not mentioned yet -
HC (high cube) containers go up to 10-1/2 ft tall. They also make custom containers that are as long as 53' and as wide as 12', but those are rare and add a lot to transportation costs.
MixmasterFestus is correct - corrugated steel panels are not load bearing - cutting openings for windows, doors, AC is a common practice. Loaded containers can be stacked 7 units tall without extra support structure, even taller if unloaded, see this 9-tall building:
http://inhabitat.com/freitag-shop-is-worlds-tallest-shipping-container-structure/
tagalong - refrigerated containers, or reefers, are considerably more expensive because of the factory-installed specialized equipment.
Container-based structures are more valuable if modules are kept as standard as possible, to take advantage of the mobility. Of course that isn't as creatively inspiring.
MixmasterFestus is correct - corrugated steel panels are not load bearing.
Oh yeah.
5 shipping containers at full weight = 336,000 lbs
Not including any safety factors, I seriously doubt 4 4" box columns could support that weight. Even at empty weight, that's pushing it.
I didn't even go to architecture school and I know this.jpg
Hello, I am an Italian architect and would like to know which permissions are used to build a house with the container. thanks
That would be the International Residential Shipping Container Code. You should be able to find it on Dwell's website.
http://www.emergeindustries.com.sg is proposing a product that can be built in or retrofitted to reefer or refrigerated container to enhance the protection of Reefer Cargo.
Summary
Reefer Flood Preventer (Brand Name: RapiDrain)
RapiDrain is new kind of Reefer Flood Preventer (RFP) that is inspired by everyday experience. It is used to prevent flooding of reefer containers which may lead to damage of reefer cargo by inhibiting clogging to the drain holes.
Reefer Flood Preventer
In order to prevent the build up of excess water, it is crucial to ensure that the reefer container drain holes is not clogged. This can be achieved by installing RapiDrain over the reefer container drain holes to prevent clogging and allow excess water to be drained off rapidly, thus preventing damage to the cargo and the container.
I think i have "REEFER MADNESS"