Collection by Ron Sequitur
Shipping Container
“The owners wanted it to look like a shipping yard that someone had made a restaurant around, in the same way that local artists in the River Arts District have repurposed factory spaces into art studios,” said Project Architect Myles Alexander. The three-story structure lets in light from the highest level, where the bottoms of the containers were removed.
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.
Trejos positioned the containers about 60 centimeters above the ground floor, which gives the main gallery and workspace a bit of a sunken feel. The double-level main room offers a spacious interior, perfect for large events and easily altered so it can be utilized as a photo studio for indoor shoots.
Mike McConkey, a superintendent for a general contractor, tasked Chris Bittner of OBR Architecture with designing an environmentally sensitive home for he and his wife in San Diego County. Utilizing three shipping containers and a bevy of cost-effective appliances, they managed to limit the budget to $160,000.
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.
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