Eight recycled shipping containers were used to construct the so-called Casa Incubo in Costa Rica. This modern home is sustainable from the ground up, right down to being build around an existing cedar tree growing on the building site, which the builders were loathe to cut down. The home was designed by architect Maria José Trejos.
The Waldorf School of Orange County, located in Costa Mesa, CA recently added 10,000 square feet of classroom space, which they achieved by using recycled shipping containers as the main building materials. It is very nice to see these sustainable building blocks used on larger scale projects where cost and speed is not the main reason for their use.
A brand new student village recently opened its doors in the town of Sderot in Israel. What sets it apart from other such villages is the fact that it was built entirely out of used shipping containers. All the work was also done by the students themselves, many with no prior construction experience, under the watchful eye of Ayalim, Israel’s largest youth organization.
Here is an tiny home built out of a recycled shipping container that is a great example of just how easy it is to create a comfortable and functional home using one of these awesome building blocks. The home was ingeniously designed by Brenda Kelly of IQ Container Homes, and built from a single 20-foot shipping container.
Ireland-based architecture firm Ceardean Architects, in collaboration with several partners and groups, recently completed Ireland’s first shipping container home, as part of the Ripple Container Homes Project. The home will be donated to the St Vincent de Paul charity and used as housing for the homeless. The shipping container spent some time on exhibit at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), before being moved to Deerpark in Co Cork and given to a family in time for Christmas. While it was on display at IMMA, people could visit it and familiarize themselves with the benefits of cargotecture.
While shipping containers are great for building affordable and comfortable homes quickly, not all architects are quite sold on their benefits. Many, however, still find the basic shape a great inspiration for designing their homes. Below are a few shipping container inspired homes, which are not actually built out of shipping containers. But some of them, nonetheless, do use very innovative building blocks.
