Image by: peppered jane
Shipping container homes have heightened in popularity recently. This is because while many of us understood the advantages of building out of recycled steel containers, we didn’t know how to make it pretty. Fortunately, there are many worldwide designers who specialize in these projects and know exactly how to convert shipping containers into your ultimate dream house.
The greatest shipping container houses in the world
Whether you wanted a beach house, a guest house, or even a mansion, these shipping container houses are some of the greatest and the most famous in the world.
The Guest House Container House
Designed by Poteet Architects, this guest house was constructed out of a standardized and narrow 40-foot container. They built it on a light industrial area, which they fully landscaped and finished. Instead of repainting the container, they played up on the bright blue of this particular container and even added the framing for the rooftop garden in the exact same shade of bright blue. They’ve really made it colorful and unique by adding red-painted sheet metal inside the bathroom, fine timber flooring, and bold, colorful furniture. In addition, they made the deck out of recycled air conditioning pads because the vinyl remains cool even in hot Texas summers.
The Redondo Beach House
The architects at De Maria Designs constructed a luxury beach house in Los Angeles out of eight steel shipping containers and other miscellaneous building materials. These strong steel containers make container homes that are not only temperature regulated, but resistant to mildew, mold, and termites, as well as lessening the risk of fire.
To keep the look, the homeowners keep the current wood floors that came with the steel containers and didn’t cover the walls. The beach house container home is divided into a large living area, four bedrooms, and three and a half bathrooms, as well as using another shipping container for an outdoor swimming pool. They utilized solar power in the house so that it would stay cool all the time. To keep with that theme, they added Energy Star appliances, LED lights, and low water flow fixtures for the sink and shower.
Maison Container Lille
Located in Lille, France, this shipping container home resembles more of a traditional home and features over 210 square meters of living space between the two floors. Patrick Partouche designed this one out of eight shipping containers of different cubic feet. He achieved a spacious living room and dining room downstairs with modern appliances and leather couches. They used metal catwalks to build a bridge and a stairway to provide access to the upstairs bedrooms. In addition, they used the metal parts they cut out of the containers and reworked them to make items like beds, coffee tables, and even some artwork.
This shipping container home is unique in that they kept the original doors from the container and can be opened from the outside if the homeowners want privacy or if they want to shield themselves from the sun. Plenty of sunlight comes from the windows and each corner that’s highlighted by the metallic beams.
Containers of Hope
While Benjamin Garcia Saxe lives in London, he’s also well-known for designing the Containers of Hope, a simple but elegant container home in San Jose, Mexico costing only $40,000. The homeowners, Marco Peralta and Gabriela Calva wanted a dream house where they could enjoy nature and ride their horses, without going into debt. By choosing to use recycled shipping containers and even doing some of the work themselves, they achieved this goal.
The simple 1,000-square-foot house was created out of two 40-feet shipping containers. They gave the homeowners stunning views by pulling apart the containers to create larger sections for window panes. In addition, they made houses of metal scraps to form a roof over the center, which provided natural sunlight and wind ventilation and cooling so they almost never had to use air conditioning.
Adam Kalkin’s Container Homes
New Jersey architect Adam Kalkin has become famous for creating shipping container homes, and even creating his own. He created his own shipping container house from recycled containers and built a unique concept. It almost appears that there is a house inside the container because of the way he formed the components. It features a large living area, kitchen, and of course bedrooms and bathrooms, but the unique element involves the glass sliding doors throughout the house.
Even though it’s known as the “Old Lady House,” this container house features all of the industrial aesthetics as his own and then some. Since this house was in the rustic area of Califon, New Jersey, he used natural fir flooring and mahogany sliding doors in the smaller areas like the pantry or half baths. He still used the glass sliding doors and stainless steel beams to divide and accent the rest of the components in the house. On the downstairs level, one-third of the space goes to a spacious 12-foot kitchen island for dinner preparation or entertaining, and right next to it a cozy fireplace with leather couches. Part of the charm included is that you can’t even tell it’s a shipping container home unless you’re outdoors because of the excellent drywall job.
As you can see, container houses have become the rage lately. Are you in the market to build one or are you inspired in any way after reading about some of these amazing ones?