The shipping container home movement is huge right now. These days, more and more people are using used shipping containers to build environmentally-friendly and affordable housing. Read on to see some of the most creative designs out there for shipping container homes.
5 Examples of Beautiful Shipping Container Homes
Here are some of the best designs for container houses around the world.
1. Zigloo Domestique, Canada
Zigloo Domestique was one of the first shipping container homes to be built in Canada.
Designed by architect Keith Dewey, it consists of 8 containers, each of which is 20-feet in size. Together, they’ve been fashioned into a 1,920 sqft, three-bedroom home. There’s also a spacious living room, a kitchen, and two bathrooms. The entire structure is made from recyclable materials, and even the exterior stairs were salvaged from another building. Dewey claims that by using sustainable materials, he saved 70 trees.
2. Manifesto House, Chile
If you don’t like the look of the metal exterior that containers have, you can draw some inspiration from this design. Designers James and Mau Arquitectura combined them with wood pallets, another item that is often recycled for furniture and other sustainable products. The pallets were used as panels to provide a more modern, aesthetically-pleasing finish for their Manifesto House.
These panels are practical, too. This is because they also provide shade, so the containers don’t get too hot in the summer. In the winter, they help to heat the metal panels. This makes it much more energy-efficient.
3. Flying Box Villa, France
This strangely-shaped house is one of the most creative container homes on our list.
The Flying Box Villa has three floors, which are all around 1,000 sqft each. On the first, there’s a garage and a laundry room. On the second, there’s a living room, a sewing studio, and a garden. Above that, there’s a sunroom full of greenery. On either side of the villa, glass facades allow inhabitants to enjoy panoramic views of the street.
4. Container Studio, New York
Real estate in New York is notoriously expensive. Shipping containers can provide a way around the extortionate housing prices, as well as red tape.
Maziar Behrooz Architecture used shipping containers and a budget of $60,000 to create a small art studio next to a client’s home. This meant they got an extension without having to apply for planning permission.
5. The Shipping Container Home, Colorado
This shipping container home was designed to be completely off-the-grid, with solar panels, photovoltaics and passive cooling techniques reducing the need for electricity. Two containers were placed on either side of a common living space to create a 1,517-sqft home, with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and an office. Wooden panels have been used to make it feel more like a cabin than a container home, and it fits right in against the mountainous backdrop.
Get Creative
These are just some ideas you can use to build a new home with containers. However, there are lots of other options available to you. For some more inspiration, see our list of features and modifications for shipping container homes.
