Adventurous Apartment Building Made of 36 Shipping Containers

In León, Mexico, Adrián López Menduett sought to create an architecturally adventurous apartment building. After he bought a parcel in the Piletas neighborhood, the city made plans to construct a road across part of his land, trimming the buildable area to just under 2,300 square feet—about a third of the original footprint. This neccessitated a vertically oriented design. To Mario Plasencia, the architect Menduett hired, shipping containers offered a way to keep costs down, to build sustainably with recycled materials, and to use an unexpected construction method. "The containers helped us get noticed," Plasencia says. "Bringing people out of their comfort zone is a challenge. Everything here is built with the same materials, colors, and shapes."