Casa Cúbica is a tiny shipping container home with a whole lot to love: a spacious rooftop deck, kitchenette, full bath and even laundry facilities. Designed by Cúbica, this modern mobile home is marketed as a vacation retreat, but could easily serve as a full-time home base for a single person or couple.

The compact home has three places to sleep, including a full-sized Murphy bed and twin bunks. The bathroom offers direct shower access from outside, ideal for when the home is placed near the beach or other places that encourage outdoor recreation. A sun shade lifts up to shelter the ground-level terrace, and closes during transportation or for privacy.

Thermal insulation keeps the metal container from getting too hot, and the home is air conditioned as well. Repurposing a shipping container has a number of advantages: it keeps construction costs low, makes the home easy to ship, reduces the need for regular maintenance, and makes it surprisingly durable and earthquake-resistant.

This model is currently on permanent public display. Want to get a feel for what it would be like to actually live in a shipping container house? A nearly-identical design, the Lotus House, is available for rent at Costa Rica’s Casa Metta hotel and cooking school.

About the architects

“Andrea Cesarman, Emilio Cabrero and Marco Coello began thirty years ago as three school friends who shared a taste for architecture, design, art, the city and the world, but above all with a deep love for Mexico. They opened their first office on Calle de Ahuehuetes with three stretchers, a fax machine and the dream of doing big projects together. They grew up in a completely different city than the one we know now, surrounded by works and references by Luis Barragán, Vladimir Kaspé, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Aldo Rossi, Philippe Starck, Zaha Hadid and masters such as Mario Pani and Agustín Hernández.”

“Little by little they began to understand the importance and complexity of their work, the responsibility of creating deeply human spaces that respond to the needs of the program, the context, the environment and historical time. A long history of work and experience designing and building spaces of various scales ranging from residential, vertical housing, interior architecture, design, restoration, public and cultural spaces make C Cúbica one of the most multidisciplinary and versatile offices in Mexico.”

The post Tiny Shipping Container Home with an Awesome Rooftop Deck first appeared on Dornob.

Perched on the hillside just above the tree line, with expansive views of the sea, this modern residence is open to the mild Costa Rican climate. Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture raised the home on pillars rather than cutting into the steeply sloped site, saving on construction costs and giving it the feel of a tree house.

Not only does this optimize views of the Pacific, it also allows the home to have a smaller environmental impact on the site. Made almost entirely of wood, ‘Casa Flotanta’ blends in with its tropical surroundings, feeling almost like a natural part of the forest.

The residence is made up of three individual cabins connected by an outdoor walkway. The volumes are staggered to follow the contours of the land, maintaining sight of the ocean from each room. Interior walls made of bamboo provide privacy while also letting in a little bit of light.

Wooden shutters leading to the zig-zag shaped terrace let the breeze from the ocean ventilate the interior, and can be closed during a storm or when the owners are away.

“The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create a home on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and they found an incredible site overlooking the ocean. The biggest challenge we encountered was that their plot of land was predominantly comprised of a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean could only be seen from the upper-mid portion of the site. We saw this as an opportunity rather than a constraint and immediately considered an architectural response that was appropriate for these conditions.”

“Originally, we explored possibilities of creating large retaining walls and cutting back the soil in order to place the house, a technique typically employed for nearby buildings. Ultimately, we decided to do the exact opposite and therefore allow the slope, the earth, the vegetation, water, and animals to flow underneath the house. We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside. By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site. This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site.”

The post Floating in the Forest: Modern Treehouse with Ocean Views first appeared on Dornob.