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Dwell letters decorate the main entrance.

Best task lighting: Koncept

Method Homes x Hastens Beds Dwell Outdoors

Organized by Ellis x Method Homes x Dwell Outdoors

Method Homes x Dwell Outdoor

Method Homes x Dwell Outdoors

Kim Lewis Tiny Homes

Kim Lewis Tiny Homes

Settlewell x The Shop

Kim Lewis Tiny Homes

Shipping Container Home (Brisbane, Australia) Architect and designer Todd Miller didn’t just use a shipping container for this home—it appears like he used an entire shipping company, since it took 31 containers to build this industrial but inviting home, which features a massive graffiti mural on the back wall. Photo by ZieglerBuild

Local artist Melissa Terrezza painted this mural inside the property. “We have three murals in the containers that she worked on,” said Kristie Quinn, the restaurant owner’s business partner. The building’s lighting is all LEDs from Rexel.

The experience provides customers a temporary point of access to the mostly online brand. Recent architecture graduate Marco Lee conceived the layout of the windows, which are from Glasshaus Living.

Floor-to-ceiling windows front each unit, with sections of container wall folded out and fixed in place as part of the shading strategy.

The apartments face a landscaped common courtyard. The site is an irregular trapezoid, a fact the zig-zagging sidewalks reflect well.

Throughout the house, Robertson, Nichols, and Walker emphasized the beauty of the natural finishes and colors of the materials they chose. Robertson originally was going to paint the overhead beams but left them in their raw state to match the tiger bamboo that covers the floor. The light wall around the master bedroom, made from Enduro Systems fiberglass, is a light turquoise on the bedroom side, amber on the living room side, and glows green at night when the lights between the two layers are turned on.

The 400-square-foot deck between the main house and guest quarters catches a cool breeze—a big bonus during Houston’s “super-summers”—and is often filled with the couple and their friends enjoying local microbrews. "The challenge was how to stitch together the house and the guest container without it looking like at the last minute we decided we needed a little more space," Robertson says.