The 40-foot-long containers hang 16 feet over the ground. The deep balcony, Gooden says, offers solar protection, keeping strong sunlight out but letting natural light in. The home has three bedrooms, a den, and three and half baths.

A 40 foot by 10 foot pool is designed to echo the house’s tower with an almost reflection-like alignment.

Corrugated steel ceilings are left exposed—a reminder that this is, after all, a container converted into a home. Spray foam insulation keeps the space from experiencing extreme temperature shifts.

On the second level, maple floors connect all the rooms together, unifying the composition.

A 1400-square-foot roof deck offers panoramic views, overlooking White Rock Lake with one of the highest elevations in the city.

For this project, the husband loved ultra-modern design, while the wife leaned towards a more traditional aesthetic. How to please both? “Through the design process, we learned that their tastes were actually more closely aligned when we focused on the desired 'feel' of the home versus specific design details,” Field says. He and his colleagues balanced rustic, exposed ceiling beams with elegant venetian plaster walls, and artful aluminum storefront windows with functional white oak plank flooring.

A continuous concrete slab runs from inside the house out to the open deck, which is exposed to the wind that sweeps the surrounding fields.

A built-in closet and chalkboard surface in the entry keeps things tidy and the couple's to-do list in order.

do it: the compendium, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York and D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., May 2013, 448 pages. ISBN: 978-1-938922-01-5. Foreword and acknowledgements by Kate Fowle and Frances Wu Giarratano. Introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Essays by Bruce Altshuler, Hu Fang, Virginia Perez-Ratton, and Elizabeth Presa. Available to purchase at Curators International.

During the worst of the recession, companies looked to DIY and low-cost creativity to innovate. One company to jump aboard the creative revamp bandwagon is the notoriously cheap Motel 6 chain. The pillar of downmarket roadside accommodations, Motel 6 is reskinning their shabby (and not chic) interiors to give them a touch of modern minimalism and an air of modest luxury. Check out the changes here.

Architect: Philip Johnson Location: Dallas, TX Price: $27.5 million The International Style architect, MoMA curator, and grandfather of East Coast modernist circles only built one home in Dallas, a colonnaded circa-1964 pile for local construction magnate Henry C. Beck and his then-wife, Patty. It sports a musuem-appropriate double staircase in the entry and luxe materials like the white Carrara marble lining the master bath. [via Dallas Morning News]

The container doors are used as barn-style sliding doors that open up to the bedrooms. The house has a "‘see-through’ nature," according to Gooden. It features a 66-foot unobstructed view along the window wall from one end to the other.

The industrial thread continues as a truck tool box converts into an elegant vanity in the master bathroom.

The 1,000-square-foot ground level is open. Three areas are divided gently by frames.

A leafy pattern, carved by a water-jet cutter, allows views through the sides—an aesthetic touch that doubles as a nod to security in the park, where crime has been an issue. Photo by Architexas.

The architects positioned the pavilion to serve as a gateway between an active part of the park, where playing fields dominate, and the less active, more natural eastern end. Photo by Carolyn Brown.

A collaboration between the Oslo- and New York-based firm Snohetta and the Dallas firm Architexas, the College Park pavilion has become an inviting gathering point for residents of the surrounding community, well west of the Dallas city center. Photo by Architexas.

The arresting lime-green interior makes the pavilion at once blend with and stand out from its surroundings. Photo by Architexas.

Dallas voters funded the pavilion project by approving bond issues at the ballot box in 2003 and 2006. Photo by Architexas.

A shallow gabled roof slopes gently from a front corner to the pavilion's rear. Photo by Architexas.

The pavilion sits in a clearing amid pecan, oak and mesquite trees. Photo by Architexas.

A collaboration between the Oslo- and New York-based firm Snohetta and the Dallas firm Architexas, the College Park pavilion has become an inviting gathering point for residents of the surrounding community, well west of the Dallas city center. Photo by Carolyn Brown.

Developer Chris Sally has been known to have conversations with passersby from his “cigar-smoking balcony.”

Contemporary, bright accents contrast with the dark concrete floors in the entertainment area.

De Waart added a chalkboard to the kitchen for writing memos and for drawing, as Tammo does here.

Best Practice Architecture transformed a former garage in the Oak Park neighborhood of Dallas into a light-filled casita filled with art by local makers and vintage finds.

The kitchen is perfect both for eating and for doing projects.

Born 1968 in Zurich, Switzerland, Obrist currently lives and works in London, where he is co-director of exhibitions and programs as well as director of international projects at the Serpentine Gallery. Obrist’s prolific career has included such accomplishments as curator of the Museum in Progress, Vienna (1993-2000), curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne (2000-today), and curator and co-curator for more than 200 solo and group exhibitions and biennials internationally since 1991. Obrist’s other accomplishments also include the New York Prize Senior Fellowship for 2007-08 from the Van Alen Institute, and roles as a contributing editor for Abitare, Artforum, and Paradis Magazine.

As part of Sculpture for Strolling (2005), Pistoletto advises participants: "After reading the daily newspaper, immerse it in water then form a small sphere by compressing the wet newspaper with one's hands. Enlarge the sphere by adding new daily newspapers soaked in water. Continue this procedure until the sphere is a meter in diameter. When well dried out, roll the newspaper sphere outside in the streets and the squares as a "sculpture for strolling."

Berkeley, CA based artist Lutz Bacher provides a much needed dose of reality for her do it instructions. Instructions for do it, 2012, Courtesy of artist.

Though we’ve yet to try it for accuracy, artist Alexandre Singh demonstrates how to turn wine into Pepsi. Alexandre Singh, Instructions for do it, 2012, Courtesy of artist,

For his contribution to do it, Thai artist Rikrit Tiravanija includes a recipe for a spicy paste. The above image and demonstration come from the vast archives maintained by ICI.

Though not included in the book, Claire Fontaine’s piece is poignantly minimalist, and majorly straight to the point. Claire Fontaine, Instructions for do it, 2012, Courtesy of artist.

Oscillating from the light-hearted to the profound, some of the most intriguing instructions are also the simplest. Jérôme Bel Shirtology, 2012 © Tate, 2012; Photo: Tate Photography, Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson

No stranger to taking on multiple projects across disciplines, a playful David Lynch demonstrated how to make a ricky board. David Lynch, Do It: How To Make A Ricky Board, 2012, Courtesy of artist.

According to ICI: “Featured in at least 50 different locations worldwide, including Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Costa Rica, Slovenia and Uruguay… The driving force behind the exhibition is aptly summarized in the words of Marcel Duchamp, who states that ‘art is a game between all people of all periods.’ He is only one of several predecessors to have shaped the modus operandi of [do it], which also draws from…art of the 1960s and 1970s as well as Fluxus practices.” Called a “middle finger to Art” by some, this project deliberately tries to hone the anything goes attitude which has fueled revelatory movements ranging from Conceptual and Minimalism to punk rock.