Collection by Sarah Gingold
Shipping Container
The look of the BetaBox was a collaboration between Nicholas Sailer, BetaVersity's director of creative, who studied industrial design at the College of Design in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Michael Hobgood, an architectural designer and the company's director of operations.
“We wanted it to feel open and spacious,” Alexander said. Much of the work on the containers was completed off-site by SG Blocks, and then delivered for construction. It's clad in Cor-Ten weathering seel.
In the open-plan kitchen, a garage door can be retracted to take advantage of the balmy California climate and bring the outdoors in. Mike's wife, Shawn, appreciates the home's proximity to hiking trails.
Because the area is prone to wildfires, the architect and residents were compelled to use special flame retardant materials for the windows and roof.
A cherry red game room gives way to a second green space on the roof, which can be used as an extension of the indoor space.
The hobby room features a custom desk and shelving system that Atelier Riri designed and manufactured themselves. A custom frame holds the family’s tools and other objects on the eastern wall.
The 1,668-square-foot three-bedroom home is made of four colorful, crisscrossed containers equipped with a simple ventilation system that facilitates a constant breeze.
Atelier Riri devised a creative way to make living inside a shipping container in Indonesia’s tropical climate both comfortable and economical. The architects layered recycled pine, glass wool, and planter mesh on top of the home to help keep temperatures down.
The recycled shipping containers were sourced from the Pacific Port of Caldera in Costa Rica. “Discarded shipping containers are all over the world and cost relatively little,” Saxe says. “With a bit of creativity and understanding of local building techniques, the interiors can be modified for any client.”
Two converted shipping containers (left) now house offices for Shoup’s design/build firm. “Perhaps the most successful aspect of turning this into a place to live and an office rather than just have this shop space was moving it towards real indoor-outdoor living,” he says. Taya Shoup, a landscape designer, has refined her husband’s vision for the property with a courtyard and plantings. Photo by building Lab inc.
Shipping containers are the building blocks of this residence tucked away in the redwood forests of Santa Cruz, California.
Maziar Behrooz designed this container studio set amid lush trees.
This modular home prototype by Meka is a shipping container clad in cedar.
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.
Two San Francisco art and travel addicts overhauled a loft—and customized a pair of shipping containers—to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions. The shipping containers were stacked, joined with steel tubes, and lashed to reinforced floor joints to make them earthquake-safe.
In February of 2007, two San Francisco art and travel addicts purchased a 3,200-square-foot former Chinese laundry and tooth-powder factory with column-free interiors and a zigzagging sawtooth roof in lower Pacific Heights. They customized a pair of shipping containers to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions, and hired a local company to sandblast the interior to expose the board-formed concrete walls and replace the carpeted floors with Georgia hickory pecan planks to further lengthen the loft and make it look more like a warehouse.
In his home office, Wardell runs his online art gallery Chester's Blacksmith Shop and researches his next project: opening a boutique hotel in New Zealand. His nephew peeks down from the "napping nook" secreted above the office. The desk is from Room & Board.
The 404 is a new boutique hotel and restaurant in Nashville’s rapidly changing Gulch neighborhood. Housed in a former auto shop next to the legendary Station Inn music venue, the small space stands in stark contrast to the new, large developments that have recently sprung up. The restaurant in front is partially housed in a shipping container that both extends the entry up to the sidewalk and acts as a visual focal point on an otherwise subdued exterior. Photo by Caroline Allison.