cargo shipping container building

With the recession in full force, many people are saving money any way they can – producing more and more demand for designing, buying and building shipping container architecture. More and more people are planning and building their very own cargo container residence – either themselves or with the help of architects and builders – inspired, in part, by pictures and drawings that are circling the world about already-built shipping container structures.

cargo container home construction

There are many plans available for you to create your own container home and architects who specialize in residential reuse of cargo containers, but few home shipping container structures to date rival the creativity and functionality of Container City – which makes it an excellent case study for anyone considering creating their own container home. This project fuses elements of prefabrication and efficiency with style and expressive livability.

cargo container housing project

While there are a few places called Container City, it is also the name of a company with a particular approach to building with containers – one that involves critical customization without excessive, costly and wasteful interventions in the material basis for their work – the cargo container. In short: they make the most of the material at hand, ultimately saving money and reducing waste.

cargo shipping container architecture

While some of their most impressive projects are residential, Container City has also created shipping container offices, school buildings, retail spaces and unique cargo-container-based places with a variety of other industrial, institutional and residential functions. They are, one project at a time, demonstrating the incredible versatility of cargo containers as constructive elements – building blocks for all kinds of architecture.

Some architects claim that containers are here to stay as a basic architectural building block of the future. Others say plans to use containers are typically sensationalist, one-off designs. The reality? So long as international shipping remains as neccessary to the global economy as it is today there will be an abundance of shipping containers that can be reused for architectural purposes. The material is cheap, available, flexible and likely will stay so for a long time.