Quick Build: Adam Kalkin’s ABC of Container Architecture
Adam Kalkin

Adam Kalkin’s Quik House is at once one of the most viable pre-fabricated systems available today – it provides a spacious dwelling, with elements of consumer customization with the most efficient reduction of both energy waste and of cost in every iteration – and a conceptual artistic stance that has yet to have run the full course of shifting and evolving meanings.

Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Columbia University.

US architect Adam Kalkin began utilising the steel-shipping container in selected projects circa 2000 exemplified in the iconic Quik House. This book features 32 fully illustrated projects, many previously unpublished. Projects range from the hydraulically powered Pandora ’s box of the Push Button House, the industrial civility of the Adriance House and the thoughtful expediency of the Refugee Village and FEMA housing concepts. Divided into three sections and generously illustrated with orthographic drawings, renders, colour photography and Kalkin ’s own hieroglyphs this beautifully produced book encapsulates the extraordinary and idiosyncratic range and quality of Kalkin ’s work. The opening section of the book contains accompanying essays from Barry Bergdoll, Alastair Gordon and editor Will McLean.


Published October 2008 by Bibliotheque McLean
144pp 340x225mm Hardback
ISBN 9780955886805
Edited by Will McLean
Essays by Barry Bergdoll, Alastair Gordon and Will McLean
Designed by Mark Boyce