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Shipping Containers Being Turned into Houses? Yup — See It Here

Mar. 1, 2013 7:38am Liz Klimas

What once held cargo on trains or ships might now hold a family. Meet the shipping container house.

(Image: World Flex Home)

Danish designers at World Flex Home — and others as well — have been transforming these large cargo containers into modular housing that can be anything from single-family to duplex to a complex of townhomes. Not only is their design relatively flexible, but the components can be shipped and constructed anywhere around the world.

(Photo: Arcagency/ Photos by Jens Markus Lindhe via TreeHugger)

(Image: World Flex Home)

For example, ArcgencY pointed out that a pilot World Flex Home was put up in Wuxi, China.

“The WFH concept is a modular concept, based on a design principle, using 40 feet high cube standard modules as structural system,” the World Flex Home states in its informational materials. “The structure can be adapted to local challenges such as climatic or earthquake issues. Online customization-tools give clients the possibility to decide their own version of the house concerning layout, size, facade, interior etc. The configuration happens within a predefined framework that will ensure high architectural value and quality of materials. Building-components are prefabricated and on site construction can be limited.”

(Image: World Flex Home)

The 180-square-meter model uses 50 percent less energy than the standard requirement for new housing in Denmark. Designs also use solar panels and even feature a green roof, which can harvest water rain water that can be used for things like toilet flushing.

Ultimately, the design, according to World Flex Home’s website, should allow the homes to “produce more energy than they consume, and to withstand earthquakes.”

Although “very green,” one problem TreeHugger had with the design is that it just uses the crates as “strong building blocks” and doesn’t expose their inherent look in the design.

This design is certainly not the first to use shipping containers in building either. Mother Nature Network has several photos of shipping container homes in a variety of designs from simple to complex. The idea is also similar to New York City’s design for “My Micro NY” apartment project, which according to an artist’s rendition looks similar to shipping containers.

(Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office via the New York Times)

Earlier this year, Vancouver announced it would be launching a social housing project made from shipping containers by 2015 in a bid to end homelessness and increase housing options for lower income households.

Learn more about the World Flex Home specs here.

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Comments (52)

PK_SEA
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:47pm
I think these are a great idea. Probably really cheap to consturct and lots of uses too. A cabin on a 2nd property or a doomsday bunker just to name a couple. You could do almost anything with the modular design. Sort of like life size Legos.

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- poorrichard09
  Posted on March 2, 2013 at 9:12am
  Could be great in tornado country-you could make a heckuva safe room inside those heavy steel walls!
  
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AZgirl9000
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:15pm
Obama has been moving many Americans into green modular low-footprint housing for the last 4 years. It’s called the cardboard box.

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- NoSleeper
  Posted on March 2, 2013 at 5:53am
  LOL – I have been telling co-workers that when I retire I will be down-sizing to a 4×8 plywood shack in the woods…may need to look at cargo containers.
  
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battles
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:14pm
Forget about this beautiful thing. This is closer to the kind of home Obamanation is leading Americans down the road to.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3UveADz0h0A/TpRlvcke5dI/AAAAAAAAACU/CiKZ4wPGvV4/s1600/600px-Poor_mother_and_children%252C_California_1936_by_Dorothea_Lange.jpg

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jhpackard
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:11pm
‘ … one problem TreeHugger had with the design is that it just uses the crates as “strong building blocks” and doesn’t expose their inherent look in the design.’ – Oh. I didn’t realize that was a problem. Thank you, TreeHugger.

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 6:36pm
Interesting, it might even work in America – except for housing is regulated so that you pay more than you have to for it? Why not buy an RV, deduct it as a home business office expense, live in it, and it will depreciate in value over time instead of feed the greedy city council who wants to inflate the value of your house so they can tax that value?

I’m not very objective on this, after watching our good friend suffer taxes – and foreclosure (sales people tied the payment and taxes together for the monthly payments in their deal). Something looks really good on paper, until the tax appraiser says you went from “un-improved” land tax rates, to “improved”?

Throw on the fire that no one wants to give tax breaks to home schooling parents and this is a perfect storm – of opportunity? Critics will just call me a whiner?

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BenFrank1791
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 5:01pm
Shipping containers have ****** strength. … those houses if built right will last.

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Al J Zira
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:58pm
The Agenda21 crowd would love to make you live in just one unit. That’s all you get because you will otherwise destroy nature.

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- toto
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 4:10pm
  That’s all you get because they believe cockroaches should have more room to roam. (That would be them.) People are so easily conned. The best example of the conning is Al Gore. It is wide open in your face with him that the little people should “do as I say not as I do”. VERY FEW environmentalists live they way they insist you live. It’s all about POWER and one world governmental control. Please help educate others about Agenda 21 which is their blueprint for YOUR future.
  
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HI_Don
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:41pm
Pretty neat, but something tells me that without some serious and intelligent effort the acoustics inside a home built with these would suck. Like living inside a echoing warehouse. You would have to know your insulation and sound absorption materials much better than wood frame or steel frame construction. Just the difference in being in track homes steel frame vs. wood frame proves that point. These I think would be 10 times worse unless you spent some money on countering the problem.

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- Disgusted_150
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 5:02pm
  Typically, there is a normal drywall material in them. Even so, all you would need to do is frame in walls and fill them with insulation. But you are right, it would take some money. I would do it if I get the opportunity and it is cheaper than (roughly) the same house built traditionally. I have seen some neat designs with roof decks! I would probably spray mine with RhinoLiner to keep the rust off…inside and out. Acoustic sheeting attached to every wall…I think it would work. Besides, if you make it look run down from the outside, (for all you crazies who are using it as a bunker) people wouldn’t want to come take it over…camouflage!
  
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coppercarla
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:37pm
30 years ago my brother was saying that we should use shipping boxes for modular jails. Stack ‘em and plumb ‘em inside of a big warehouse. One convict to a cell, replace most of one long wall with bars leaving only 3 feet for potty privacy. Plenty of room to exercise so you don’t need to let them out. Weld them in at the start of their sentence, unweld and let them out when they’re done. No riots, no prison yard violence issues, no shankings in the mess halls…

Maybe my brother wasn’t such an idiot after all….

Seriously, tho… nice concept, but aesthetically the outside look doesn’t work for me. Too utilitarian. I think even a bit off roof overhang (soffet and fascia) would make a huge difference for people like me.

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- ltcwilly
  Posted on March 2, 2013 at 8:23am
  That’s exactly how the contractors built Camp Delta in Gitmo. It’s rows of cargo containers that have been turned into cells. Halliburton has been building latrines and even sleeping quarters out of cargo containers in theater for over 10 years. Smart.
  
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Gargent_Furball
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:16pm
bout time,

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Rayblue
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:14pm
I had this idea years ago.
But I wanted to place them in a square so as to have an open space in the center. And have one on each corner set on end like towers. I can just hear it now…
“There has been too much violence. Too much pain. But I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away. Give me your pump. the oil, the gasoline, and the whole compound, and I’ll spare your life. Just walk away and we’ll give you a safe passageway in the wastelands. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.”

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- PK_SEA
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:49pm
  I’m driving the truck!
  
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AmericanItalian
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:47pm
A think it’s a really cool idea and I’m all for it so long as the government doesn’t step in and say we all have to start buying these homes and we all have to start to scale back.

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- hoopsgulch
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:57pm
  Nice, but how does one mow a rooftop lawn?
  
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- The_Cabrito_Goat
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:00pm
  I concur, the ingenuity of Americans never ceases to surprise me.
  
  Note that “ingenuity” is not far removed from the word “genius”.
  
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thegreatcarnac
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:28pm
Neat….and liveable.

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mikeg642000
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:20pm
Warning: check with your local building code Nazi’s before attempting!

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Tombstone
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 10:51am
I lived in a shipping container for a year in 2005 in Iraq while serving in the Army. It did the job fine and was better than sleeping outside.

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- DYNA
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:08pm
  Is the steel thick enough to deflect small arms fire?
  
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- ThomasUSA
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 1:03pm
  Dyna.. Are you saying Tombstone was being attacked by an enemy with small arms that were pyromaniacs? Please clarify… you can call my office.. just ask for Joe Biden..
  
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- Elena2010
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:03pm
  No, but he was probably behind the wire.
  
  We used shipping containers (CONEX boxes) in Gitmo to house personnel TAD to the last rafter crisis.
  
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- DesertDave54
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:32pm
  @TOMBSTONE As soon as I saw the article, that’s EXACTLY what I thought!!! Dollars to doughnuts that’s where the idea came from… CHU’s!!! The take fragments pretty well, too!! The hardware used to link them together is pretty sturdy… they had them triple-stacked at the compound at the Basra Consulate base. Nicer than the old British ones where we lived. Ah, the memories…
  
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- DYNA
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:48pm
  @Elena2010
  
  Thanks for the info.
  
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- maryslittlelamb
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:30pm
  Frank Lloyd Wright did some tinkering with alternative housing in the 40s & 50s. One was as simple as a frame with burlap draped over it and then splattered with concrete (frosted like a cake). Out on the prairie our frontier ancestors lived in soddies. Basic housing isn’t hard to arrange, it does gall me, tho, to see Americans being softened up for downgrading their comfort level. Living cheaply is a good option to have but it irks me to see it becoming a necessity.
  
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1_Smoot_Tall
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 9:48am
I think it can revolutionize the term “mobile home”. It can be combined with the moving Pods idea. You can have your home shuffled out and move to a new city with minimal packing.

Less / slower-moving fires?

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- Displacedsoutherner
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 2:38pm
  Just show up with a boxcar full of wheels and half of Alabama can be on the move within 24 hrs, no packing necessary, just be sure to unchain the pit bull from the back door before you hit the interstate.
  
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DTfinancial
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 9:30am
Would this type of house meet US housing codes? If it does, it seems that some industrious construction people could make a good living building these. Being unemployed myself, it makes me wonder.

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thom48708
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 9:05am
They’ve been doing this in Chile for years now. BTW……Why do “Tree Huggers” have a problem with the appearance?

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DZ-015
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 8:39am
Supersized Legos from the country that invented them, it’s a great idea. It could be used in earthquake prone areas such as Haiti and the Middle East, both as quickly built shelters for refugees as well as permanent housing, replacing collapsible masonry buildings.

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- lobster
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 9:10am
  I suggested this to my HR guy Tom Graves right after the Haiti earthquake, his Chief of Staff didn’t even bother to reply to the email. Methinks these “career” bureaucrats aren’t interested in doing anything more than keeping their jobs.
  
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- gbo
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:17pm
  As per @LOBSTER
  You will regret staking claim to this line of reasoning. The role of the government is not to fix anything of importance. It is to create and exacerbate crises for its own profit and amusement. Solutions? We don’t need no stinking solutions! Silly ignorati.
  
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Locked
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 8:27am
That’s actually pretty neat. The Denmark house in particular seemed pretty viable.

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NoMoMrNiceGuy
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 8:24am
Looks like an Agenda 21 future is coming soon to a city near you !

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- robinriordan
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 11:06am
  I agree. There has been such an increase in the advertising of these “cubicle” homes lately. Have seen lots of articles about “tiny” ecofriendly housing. We all know the “brainwashing” starts with the media. Smacks of Agenda 21. I certainly would not relish the idea of living in a 10 x 20 cubicle.
  
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- Disgusted_150
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 3:23pm
  Friends. You connect them. You can make these look EXACTLY like a wood-framed house. It is a FANTASTIC business opportunity, but you must live near where there is an excess of the containers or your transportation costs are pretty high. Must we bring your psychosis into this harmless article? I suppose you also think the police and military will usher everyone into their own cargo container? How many current military members do you know? Plenty of them would not follow the order. Enough to put your fears at ease. I assume the same goes for the police force. Regardless, I have wasted my time and effort responding.
  
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- igetit
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 4:20pm
  How very sustainable!
  
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hi
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 8:02am
Why does Vancouver, Canada have homeless? I thought socialism took care of everyone. (not)

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Xiccarph
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:57am
Metal walls…a little ballistics protection, modular bunkers…per O_J_W, and a ready made Faraday cage. And don’t forget low cost, a very important factor given the financial screw-job we are all getting from our loving gov’t.

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- lobster
  Posted on March 1, 2013 at 9:19am
  They are only 14 gauge steel so they won’t stop anything stronger than a 9mm or a 22, but nevertheless a good idea.
  
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Outlaw_Josey_Wales
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:46am
Would make a nice bunker under or above ground.

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bikerdogred1
Posted on March 1, 2013 at 7:44am
A great idea and looks good too.

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