A link from Twitter this morning to these photos of the now-demolished Taoho Design Office and Studio appealed to my interest in shipping containers, which will be well-known to readers of this blog. The ur-text is of course Marc Levinson’s [amazon_link id=”0691136408″ target=”_blank” ]The Box[/amazon_link], published in 2007, but selected by Bill Gates as one of the best books he read in 2013.

[amazon_image id=”0691136408″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger[/amazon_image]

Parenthetically, I thought the whole list was terrific  – I quite enjoyed William Rosen’s [amazon_link id=”1845951352″ target=”_blank” ]The Most Powerful Idea in the World[/amazon_link]. I’ve not read the others but they all sound interesting. I have read some papers preceding Morten Jerven’s [amazon_link id=”080147860X” target=”_blank” ]Poor Numbers[/amazon_link], although the book wasn’t out in time before I finished writing [amazon_link id=”0691156794″ target=”_blank” ]GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History[/amazon_link]. It’s interesting – and encouraging – to see new interest in what the aim is in measuring ‘the economy’. It must be a good thing if the wider world is getting interested in shipping containers and statistics.

[amazon_image id=”1845951352″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention[/amazon_image]

urbanphoto_blog Ahead of its time: HK architect Tao Ho built eco-friendly office from shipping containers… in 1989 http://t.co/pFufIZWwdy 10/01/2014 02:56