12 Awesome Ways to Reuse Shipping Containers

Architecture  

Reusing shipping containers is one of the biggest trends in architecture and design. The practice is not only good for the environment, but has helped create some very imaginative designs around the world.

Shipping containers are the newest craze in eco-friendly building and design. They used to sit abandoned on shipping docks across the globe, taking up space.

Due to their abundance, relative cheapness, durability, and adaptability, they became very attractive to architects and designers worldwide. The result are numerous retired containers repurposed into unique homes, offices, museums, sculptures, and much more. Check out these 12 creative ideas for reusing shipping containers.

  

Image Source: http://cdn.homedit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/two-storey-container-house1.jpg

1. Housing

Related articles Enhancing Your Brain Plasticity  Psychologists Report New Insights On Consciousness  Videos from Global Futures 2045

These boxy containers are easy to stack which makes them perfect for housing. You can transform a single container into a compact and modern dwelling, such as Ecopod, or bank them up for a larger home or complex of smaller homes. Shipping containers make excellent beach houses since they are made to withstand harsh sea conditions for years, and they are wind and watertight.

2. Offices

If you are running a logistics company, a shipping container would be a most appropriate solution for your office. It would contribute to the authenticity of your business and brend.

Image Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c4/f5/e7/c4f5e7302645e2553b0aae484048c90b.jpg

3. Swimming Pools

The Badeschiff is a public swimming pool that is floating on the Spree River in Berlin. With proper adjustments, shipping containers can be made into a home swimming pool. One container can hold enough water for the entire family to enjoy, but you can also widen it by joining more containers together. Paint the bottom of the pool in some crazy colors to make it even more unique.

4. Barns

A steel barn is the perfect solution for protecting produce, costly farming equipment, and livestock. Plus, they are fire resistant, so you wouldn’t need to worry about the fire risks of the hay lying around in your barn.

Image Source: http://www.gardenista.com/files/styles/733_0s/public/img/sub/uimg/08-2012/700_poteet-container-house-3.jpg

5. Container Deck

Wooden decks are a feast for termites, carpenter ants, and other pests. With shipping containers you get a much more sustainable construction, which is easy to maintain and clean.

6. Emergency Shelter

After the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, New York City built a post-disaster shelter prototype out of shipping containers to ensure that the city is better prepared for any future natural disasters. The project involves the transformation of modular shipping container units into comfortable living spaces that will provide shelter and security to people who lose their homes to a disaster.

Image Source: http://www.hptrailerleasing.com/sites/424/uploaded/images/montreal_popup_lobster_shop_made_from_shipping_containers-thumb600x600.jpg

7. Adjustable Pop Up Shops

This idea is particularly great for shops that sell their goods on the streets, like small coffee shops or food stalls, or a container restaurant. They can be easily adjusted to fit your business type.

8. Container City

Why stop at one house when you can build an entire city? London’s Container City was designed by architects Nicholas Lacey and Buro Happold. It is made entirely out of stacked containers, and is especially popular with artists who can rent relatively cheap studios here.

Image Source: http://www.cubedepot.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/container-table.png

9. Container Furniture

There are at least three reasons to go for container furniture - it is sturdy, eco-friendly, and artsy. For Design Weekend in São Paulo in 2012, Contain[It] invited a group of designers to come up with unique ideas to use up container scraps. The result were modern industrial pieces of furniture, such as a lounge chair, lamps, vases, shelves, and a table.

10. Art

Those more creative can transform a Container into green art, whether by stacking containers into a monumental sculpture or by twisting, folding, and reassembling container scraps.

Image Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/49/18/95/49189522ff1de5a37b74966fbfde41a6.jpg

11. Playground from Containers

There is one in Melbourne. Innovative shipping container playgrounds are new to children. Hence, they exercise children’s imagination by making them think of new games and ways to have fun.

12. Eco-Container Bridge

Yoav Messer Architects designed a perfect gateway to the once-notorious-landfill-turned-into-green-space Ariel Sharon National Park in Tel Aviv. Pictured at the top of this article, the bridge is 525-foot-long and constructed from a line of reused shipping containers.

Can you think of any other practical uses for retired shipping containers?

By Lana Hawkins

Embed

Author Bio - Lana Hawkins is a student of Architecture from Sydney, Australia. She loves writing about home decor, but her truly passion is landscaping and garden design. She enjoys cooking for her family and friends in her free time.