Tom Givone’s clients, Rose and Steve Smith, teach overseas and have owned their house for 26 years. They intended to fix it up slowly and retire there. As one problem led to another, they reached a point when they felt their only option, as Rose put it, was to “burn it down.”

Transforming shipping containers into habitable spaces is a growingly popular subset of prefab. Just off the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, Martha Moseley and Bill Mathesius adapted an unused concrete foundation to create a home made from 11 stacked shipping containers. "We were inspired by the site, and our desire to have something cool and different," says Moseley.

The couple connected several of the shipping containers, hollowing out the sides to form large, open living areas. “I’ve always been a loft guy,” says Mathesius.

The original Colonial-style exterior included a few small dormers that weren’t large enough to maximize views or welcome natural light into the home. To fix this, Michael installed a series of new ones. Made of standing seam aluminum, they're designed to evoke the feel of local barn windows with a slightly modern twist.

The staircase works as a visual transition from the cozy first level to the more modern second floor. When standing downstairs, the staircase pulls away from the dark anchoring floorboards with angled steel beams, stainless steel cables, and wood caps. “It’s thin and light so that it wouldn’t impede connection to the first floor,” says Michael. “It’s meant to be pretty modern, but the wood cap softens the look a little, and makes the experience of touching the railing softer.”

Kahn's often pegged with being architect who imposed his will on a structure, but in the case of this home commission, a rare residential work, it's instructive to understand how far he went to make the home accommodate its inhabitants. The modified open floor plan respected the client's wish to "be able to play touch football in every room," and the two-story glass facade helped an allergy-suffering owner experience the outdoors.

"Use parks to create places people want to hang out in and manage stormwater at the same time," says Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer-prize wining architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. "The city is under federal mandate to reduce its overflows into rivers when it rains heavily. Moreover, Philadelphia has a real shortage of green space. So it combined these two ideas: Instead of building twenty-five-inch pipes, they will use greenspaces to absorb rainwater. It's the most sustainable thing Philadelphia is doing."

The couple opted for a floating floor of cork tiles from Ecore Commerical Flooring. In this method of installation, tiles are affixed to one another, rather than nailed into the floorboards. This allows the tiles to expand and contract with heat, making it ideal for radiant surfaces. Moseley and Mathesius are also fans of cork’s natural color. ecorecommercialflooring.com

In addition to saving on construction costs, upcycling an old container can be an eco-friendly alternative to building from the ground up.

Moseley notes the home’s distinctive staircase as one of her favorite features. "When the steel was ordered from the steelyard," she says, "it was marked with our metalworker’s name, for easy pickup. That scribble still exists in random places in the staircase and is very industrial—we love it!" Hand-welded by Mike Carman, a local contractor, the staircase runs through all three floors, and it was custom-sized to fit the dimensions of the shipping containers, measuring nine-feet-six-inches tall and eight-feet wide.

In Mathesius’s office on the third floor, an antique armchair, a rug, and a bookshelf made from salvaged wood create a cozy, sun-filled reading nook.

Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1964)Robert Venturi's home for his mother is considered by many to be the first postmodern building. With its green hue, unusually tall chimney, stairs leading to nowhere and oversize fireplace with stairs squeezed around it, the house is what the architect called his "manifesto against Modernism."

In the master bedroom, a custom bed by Jason Micciche is outfitted with linens from Marimekko; the ceiling fan is by Fanimation.

The custom kitchen boasts a suite of appliances by Miele and custom sliding doors and windows by Arcadia Architectural Series that open to views of the Delaware River, just across the street.

Though many of the interior surfaces have been spray-foam insulated and covered in Sheetrock, the couple, drawn to the natural patina of the shipping containers, opted to keep select areas of the material exposed. Closed off by bas-relief doors designed by Mathesius, the main guest room is one of few spaces that put whole walls of the raw surface on display, painted in Benjamin Moore’s warm Kalamata and Wasabi hues. benjaminmoore.com

Marble was used throughout the master bathroom in order to create a timeless feel that would age well. “The hope is that in 15 years, you won’t look at the room and think, ‘oh, that tile was only popular in 2015,” Michael says.

"It flashed by like a steel thunderbolt, the ground shaking under me, in a blast of air that almost sucked me into its whirlwind." Loewy’s description of this one-off locomotive he designed for the Pennsylvania Railroad company belies his talent for self-promotion. It also captures the excitement of this steel behemoth, a projectile at rest that’s more steampunk than anything Jules Verne could have imagined. Sadly, after debuting at the 1939 World’s fair, Loewy’s creation had a short career, retiring from the rails in the mid-1940s due to performance issues.

Large windows are located in every room to ensure views of the pond remain unobstructed.

A small wooden deck originally anchored the backyard, which has since been transformed into a larger social area. “We wanted something that was sunken into the earth that would feel like you’re enveloped by the surroundings,” Michael says. In order to achieve this, he installed a concrete retaining wall that's level with the soil above it, so foliage will gradually grow into the living space. This feature creates an almost ruin-like feeling and a direct connection to the surrounding landscaping.

Swell Seating CollectionA classic design by Richard Schulz, the Swell Seating Collection and its pieces are nearly all made in Pennsylvania. The specialized sewing necessary to produce the slings that make up the seats is done at Schultz HQ in Palm, Pennsylvania, in a converted glove factory. Even the vendor who makes the cardboard boxes for shipping this outdoor furniture is located just down the road.

A few elements of the original home were preserved, such as the brick fireplace in the main living room, where an existing beam was repurposed to act as the mantel. The wood flooring is made of reclaimed fence boards, treated with a black finish originally employed to prevent horses from gnawing on the boards. “We all walk around barefoot, so it’s nice to feel the texture of the wood and all the history that was put into those boards. Over time, the dents and bruises will be put in there by our family, so it’s going to weather with us, which is nice,” says Michael.

Givone calls this project a companion to his Floating Farmhouse, featured in Dwell in 2012.

A mix of vintage finds and pieces designed by Mathesius, including a Cor-Ten steel fire pit on the second-floor deck, furnish a majority of the home.

A quiet reading area sits on the second floor landing, where the home’s existing wood floors remain intact. Previously, that nook housed a closet, so views to the outdoors were obstructed. Michael felt it was important to have a continued connection to the yard when moving throughout the house, so he created a scheme to bring natural light inside and a view to the outside from the second floor.

The new Alfi collection by Jasper Morrison for @emecochairs continues the Pennsylvania-based furniture manufacturer's commitment to using responsible materials. The seats are 100 percent reclaimed post-industrial polypropylene and wood fiber and the bases are ash wood.

The first level is designed for the family to socialize. The biggest priority was an open kitchen that would seamlessly connect with the living areas. “When we entertain, everyone is in the kitchen, so we thought let’s just make the kitchen the whole first floor, because everyone’s going to be in there anyway,” Michael says. “We had the luxury of living in the house for a few years to see how we used it and how we lived. Decisions like this were based on experience.”

Day takes a swim in a new lap pool framed by a lush Southern California garden. The lower wall next to the pool is made from stacked Pennsylvania bluestone, which was used for all exterior stone as well.

Embracing the industrial character of the corrugated steel material, he and Moseley applied the salvaged scraps as decorative siding for the hand-welded staircase.

Built in 1957, this home was saved and dismantled at its original location in Illinois and relocated to its current location in Acme, Pennsylvania—only 30 minutes from the iconic Fallingwater. The Duncan House shares the 100-acre Polymath Park with three other homes for rent, designed by Wright’s apprentices.

Ace Hotel Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania holds intellectual treasures behind its brutalist facade.

Rob D'Amico, lead fabricator at Amuneal in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Walls, ceilings, and floorings are clad in warm white oak sourced from a small mill in Pennsylvania.

At a renovated home in Pennsylvania, the orange kitchen countertops were swapped for custom concrete countertops. The cabinets were painted Pink Ground by Farrow & Ball and paired with Build.com hardware, giving the kitchen a warm glow, in particular thanks to the natural light coming in from the double exposure of the windows. The kitchen sink and faucet are from Amazon, while the tile is from Lowes.

Pennsylvania Marble Series plates by Nate Mell and Wynn Bauer for Felt+Fat, $32-$64 each The tableware makers based in Philadelphia created a proprietary porcelain clay body to achieve the marblized effect, which is finished in a clear glaze. The plates come in sizes ranging from six to eleven-and-a-half inches in diameter.