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This line of prefab tiny homes built from disused shipping containers proves that less is more!

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VMD (Vivienda Minima de Descanso) from STUDIOROCA is a line of prefabricated tiny homes built from disused shipping containers in Mexico, with an interior equipped with off-grid capabilities and simple luxuries.

These days, everyone’s downsizing. Tiny homes have become the answer to our neverending quest for a smaller carbon footprint and campers bring us that much closer to the mobile lifestyle each one of us dreams about. For Mexico-based architecture firm, STUDIOROCA, shipping containers hold the key.

After asking the question of our times, “What would you do with less?”, Rodrigo Alegre and Carlos Acosta of STUDIOROCA pumped out a line of prefabricated homes, VMD (Vivienda Minima de Descanso) constructed from disused shipping containers.

STUDIOROCA designed the line of prefabricated homes to provide a “no-fuss, low-cost building solution,” outfitting the exterior and interior with environmentally friendly materials and smart home automation systems. Tracing the interior’s open layout, each one-bedroom shipping container provides an open-plan kitchenette, a dining area, and living space on one end, then a bathroom and storage space can be found in the middle, whereas the bedroom finds privacy on its own end.

The distinguishable corrugated siding on the shipping container’s exterior is constructed from black Hunter Douglass Quadroline aluminum, which merges into gray Valchromat Viroc cement-bonded particle board, giving the home a rich, industrial look amidst natural surroundings. Constructed to last, the exterior of VMD shipping containers is resistant against water and fire, non-toxic, thermally insulating, and sound-dampening, providing a quiet, safe retreat.

Following a minimal-impact assembly process, each shipping container from STUDIOROCA’s VMD line is constructed in an offsite factory over the span of three months to be installed within a time frame of only seven days. While each prefab home can be customized to fit the taste of each client, they also come with preset elements.

The flooring, for instance, comes from FSC-certified engineered oak and each home comes equipped with smart home appliances. After choosing between a 320-square-foot one-bedroom home, 640-square-foot two-bedroom home, or a 640-square-foot three-bedroom home, clients can add on elements like an outdoor deck and off-grid capacities.

Designer: STUDIOROCA

The post This line of prefab tiny homes built from disused shipping containers proves that less is more! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Architectural designs made from shipping containers that encourage sustainable living + exhibit great waste purposing!

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Recently, repurposed shipping containers have gained immense popularity in architecture! They are being used to build homes, offices, and other architectural structures. It’s a sustainable trend that gives birth to compact, modular, and easily portable structures that can serve as almost anything – from tiny homes to even swimming pools! This trend basically eliminates the process of construction, hence reducing greenhouse emissions, and contributing to designs that are not only ecological but economical as well. And, we’ve curated some of the most amazing architectural structures for you, that have been created from shipping containers. Sustainable, compact, and surprisingly good-looking, these designs could be the future of modern architecture!

Ela, a tiny home currently available for booking on Airbnb, is one of two shipping containers turned cabins designed by Bethany Hershberger that sits in the forested clearing of Walnut Creek, Ohio. Arriving at the tiny home, guests descend a long timber staircase that brings them to the forest floor where Ela is located. Situated on a slight incline, Ela emerges from the trees on an exposed wooden foundation that carries the shipping container and outdoor leisure area. Accessible via a folding loft step ladder, the outdoor living area features a lounging area with plenty of chairs, a natural gas fire pit, an outdoor shower, and a tub. From the shower to the deck chairs, Ela finds warmth in natural wooden accents and textured glass elements to create a private, yet intimate leisure area.

Estúdio Lapinha in Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a tiny home constructed out of two conjoined shipping containers, designed by architecture studio Plano Livre. By design, the corrugated steel boxes are prepared for every season and all the elements that come with them. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Plano Livre, a Minas Gerais-based architecture studio, designed and constructed Estúdio Lapinha, a tiny home formed out of two conjoined shipping containers. The hydraulics of Estúdio Lapinha reside in the former module, while all of the home’s furniture and living spaces are located in the latter.

Ahurewa is a 60m2 off-grid tiny home constructed from five shipping containers to provide natural eco-insulation and the potential for modular expansion. Situated in the mountains of New Zealand’s Mahakirau Forest Estate, Ahurewa is a sustainable tiny home equipped with twelve solar panels, a 4kw system inverter, two 25,000 liter water tanks, and a worm-composting septic system. Composed of five shipping containers, the tiny home benefits from natural eco-insulation and an industrial build that’s long-lasting and durable. Four of the five shipping containers are dedicated to actual living space, while the fifth shipping container only keeps the home’s mudroom. The mudroom primarily functions as a transitional space between the outdoors and indoors.

Dubbing them “the world’s cardboard boxes,” Rathnam felt inspired to build the pools as a means of giving the discarded shipping containers new purpose and new life to backyards. The shipping containers are purchased by Rathnam after goods are shipped to North America from China since they would otherwise just be discarded and not reused for shipping purposes. Depending on your backyard and its building parameters, Modpools can be customized to fit. No matter where you live, Modpools can be integrated into your home’s environment. Maintaining a clean and dent-free look, Rathnam’s Modpools are formed from single-use containers that only ship goods such as cellphones, computers, and clothes.

This two-story home crafted from shipping container materials and Sapele wood is designed to rise and fall with the natural changes in sea level as we battle climate change. Kairu is a variation of the Japanese word for frog which is an homage to the water-based home. The area is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy even after a decade and could use innovative reconstruction. That is where Kairu House comes in as an affordable, sustainable, and resilient home. It will become the primary residence for the founder and principal architect of Rekstur and his family. The main building is made of two 40-feet-tall shipping containers.

Containerwek transformed old shipping containers into 21 micro-apartments for people who visit the town of Wertheim, Germany. Deemed, My Home, all the apartments have been placed in decommissioned shipping containers. The containers have been clad in timber and organized in groups of three. The 26 square meter micro-apartments showcase an open-plan space, amped with a kitchenette, dining table, television, a bed, and a bathroom.

This MUA getaway cabin is right by the Tbilisi Sea, in Georgia, and gives our summer imagination a life. The cabin is located 20 minutes away from the city center and has been designed by the architecture team to serve as a relaxing space where they can recharge their creative batteries – it’s like when a doctor prescribes medicine for themself, win-win! The container sits next to the sailing club (another MUA creation) by the Tbilisi Sea. During summer, this area is popular among the locals and becomes a hub for fishing and water sports activities. The impressive monument of Zurab Tsereteli also graces the location which makes it an even more interesting project site.

Grillagh Water House by Patrick Bradley is made up of four stacked shipping containers! A balcony shaded by steel fins projects from the upper story of this house in Northern Ireland, which this architect and farmer built using four used shipping containers. “I didn’t want to change the idea or the aesthetics of the design but I had to come up with an alternative that was more affordable and that’s where the idea for shipping containers came from,” says Bradley.

We are adding Gaia by Pin-Up Houses to our list of the most incredible tiny houses! Gaia is a discarded shipping container turned into a cozy, self-sufficient home fitted with the latest technology to match your modern lifestyle. It was designed to be an alternative solution to traditional housing and reduce the negative impact on the environment. One of the main features of the experimental off-the-grid housing project is that it harvests solar and wind energy. Gaia doesn’t rely on external sources of energy or water which is vital in the current climate crisis as well as the future. It comes equipped with solar panels and a wind turbine so the batteries will be fully charged at any time of the day and during all seasons. You can monitor the battery levels through a mobile app even if you are on the go.

‘Bureau Agreste’ is a modern shipping container office that provides professionals with a dedicated working space. The contemporary aesthetic masks the fact that it is an eco-friendly space. It has two levels with an open floor plan that makes it feel roomier and encourages productivity. It also features solar panels on the roof along with a rainwater harvesting system which makes it perfect for off-grid locations – this way businesses can save on the high rent they would usually pay in big cities. The container suspension frees up the ground space for organizing recreational outdoor activities (or even parking!) and gives the elevation needed for natural light.

This tiny home in Brazil coated in bright colors inside and out is formed from two disused shipping containers!

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Estúdio Lapinha in Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a tiny home constructed out of two conjoined shipping containers, designed by architecture studio Plano Livre.

The variations of tiny homes today seem to be endless. We’ve seen tiny houses with roofs that unfurl and expand to reveal concealed bedroom lofts. Then, there are the tiny home designs that can be assembled from flat-pack DIY kits. However, the most frequented choice for designers and architects of tiny homes has to be disused shipping containers.

By design, the corrugated steel boxes are prepared for every season and all the elements that come with them. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Plano Livre, a Minas Gerais-based architecture studio, designed and constructed Estúdio Lapinha, a tiny home formed out of two conjoined shipping containers.

Initially conceived for Casacor, an annual architectural show that takes place in Minas Gerais, the infrastructure and layout of Estúdio Lapinha were designed to be transported from Casacor’s exhibition space to a permanent residence. Finding transportability in shipping containers, the architects at Plano Livre merged two together to have one function as an infrastructural module and the other as the home’s living module.

The hydraulics of Estúdio Lapinha reside in the former module, while all of the home’s furniture and living spaces are located in the latter. By creating a dynamic tiny home out of modular shipping containers, Plano Livre constructed Estúdio Lapinha to be flexible and indeterminate in shape and size–a tiny home that can be expanded upon over time.

The tiny home’s exterior has been painted a muted lime green to complement the lush greenery that surrounds and completely immerses Estúdio Lapinha. Propped up on a wooden patio, Estúdio Lapinha finds height and rises alongside the trees and tall grasses nearby. Located on one side of Estúdio Lapinha, residents can lounge in a trampoline hammock just beyond the main bedroom’s expansive French doors.

Inside, bright painted walls and tiled flooring delineate each room and pay homage to Brazil’s colorful personality. The living and sleeping areas are the only parts of the home that find warmth in natural, unstained wooden paneling. The sofa’s back doubles as the bed’s headboard to provide a subtle and functional partition.

Throughout the home, steel shelving units provide extra storage space for bulkier items like heavy books and houseplants, tracing the ceiling from the kitchen to the cerulean blue bathroom. In addition to the expansive, floor-to-ceiling French doors, the home’s ceiling is painted the same green as its exterior to bring the home that much closer to the outdoors.

Designer: Plano Livre

Coated in cerulean blue, Estúdio Lapinha’s bathroom feels open and bright. 

Sliding floor-to-ceiling glass doors dissolve the barrier between the studio’s insides and the surrounding outdoors.

This shipping container has been transformed into a getaway by the sea!

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When designers repurpose shipping containers into shelters, it feels like the adult version of building forts and tents! It’s taking something that doesn’t resemble a shelter – like bedsheets or shipping containers – and turning them into the most wonderful getaways. This MUA getaway cabin is right by the Tbilisi Sea, in Georgia, and gives our summer imagination a life. The cabin is located 20 minutes away from the city center and has been designed by the architecture team to serve as a relaxing space where they can recharge their creative batteries – it’s like when a doctor prescribes medicine for themself, win-win!

With eco-insulation and solar power, this tiny home built from five shipping containers was designed for off-grid living!

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Ahurewa is a 60m2 off-grid tiny home constructed from five shipping containers to provide natural eco-insulation and the potential for modular expansion. Situated in the mountains of New Zealand’s Mahakirau Forest Estate, Ahurewa is a sustainable tiny home equipped with twelve solar panels, a 4kw system inverter, two 25,000 liter water tanks, and a worm-composting septic system.

Shipping containers are steadily proving to be much more multifunctional than we’re used to giving them credit. Initially passed off as just a means for delivery, we’ve seen the shipping container become a backyard swimming pool and now, the YouTube series ‘Living Big in a Tiny House,’ documents an off-grid home in the Mahakirau Forest Estate built from five 20-foot shipping containers.

After moving in with her husband, Rosie sold her home in Auckland to buy some land in the mountains where she could begin construction on her off-grid tiny home. Of the 600 hectares that make up the Mahakirau Forest Estate, Rosie’s tiny home, dubbed Ahurewa to honor the surrounding woodlands, takes up only nine of them. Each home site is covenanted with the QEII National Trust, trusting landowners to be guardians of the surrounding environment and protect it.

Composed of five shipping containers, Rosie’s tiny home benefits from natural eco-insulation and an industrial build that’s long-lasting and durable. Four of the five shipping containers are dedicated to actual living space, while the fifth shipping container only keeps the home’s mudroom. The mudroom primarily functions as a transitional space between the outdoors and indoors. Inside, Rosie houses the batteries, inverter, and power board for the solar panels that line the roof, keeping the hum of the inverter an appropriate distance away from the bedroom.

Since Rosie’s tiny home is entirely off-grid, sustainable utilities and add-ons fill the exterior and interior of each shipping container. Twelve solar panels line one shipping container’s roof, which is powered by a 4-kilowatt system inverter. Outside, two 25,000 liter water tanks and a worm-composting septic system provide water and an accompanying purification system for continued use and safe drinking.

Designer: Rosie x Living Big in a Tiny House

Unfinished plywood panels line the one bedroom of the house, highlighting the panoramic view of the surrounding environment, as seen through the double-glazed, floor-to-ceiling windows. 

Ahurewa’s bathroom features concrete panels and stained wood accents to complement the home’s industrial look.

The tiny home wraps around an exterior deck to provide 360° views of the mountains and forests that surround it.

One side of the house receives sunlight during the afternoon and evenings, while the other receives morning sunlight, so both sun and shade are within walking distance.

Architectural designs made of shipping containers that exhibit great waste repurposing + sustainable living!

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Recently, repurposed shipping containers have gained immense popularity in architecture! They are being used to build homes, offices, and other architectural structures. It’s a sustainable trend that gives birth to compact, modular, and easily portable structures that can serve as almost anything – from tiny homes to even ICU pods! This trend basically eliminates the process of construction, hence reducing greenhouse emissions, and contributing to designs that are not only ecological but economical as well. And, we’ve curated some of the best architectural structures for you, that have been created from shipping containers. Sustainable, compact, and surprisingly good-looking, these designs could be the future of modern architecture!

One of Handcrafted Movement’s projects that I absolutely loved was the Pacific Harbor model. Built from a shipping container, the details truly show the team’s wanderlust and craftsmanship. It is built on a 30’x8.5’ triple axel Iron Eagle trailer – compact, convenient, and classy. The interiors are kept light and breezy to manifest the feeling of spaciousness. The tiny home includes a downstairs flex area that can be turned into a bedroom or home office, a sleeping loft in the back, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, and a Mini-Split System for air conditioning and heating. The exterior features Board & Batt, black-framed windows, cedar accents, a cedar post & deck system.

Containerwek transformed old shipping containers into 21 micro-apartments for people who visit the town of Wertheim, Germany. Deemed, My Home, all the apartments have been placed in decommissioned shipping containers. The containers have been clad in timber and organized in groups of three. The 26 square meter micro-apartments showcase an open-plan space, amped with a kitchenette, dining table, television, a bed, and a bathroom.

‘Bureau Agreste’ is a modern shipping container office that provides professionals with a dedicated working space. The contemporary aesthetic masks the fact that it is an eco-friendly space. It has two levels with an open floor plan that makes it feel roomier and encourages productivity. It also features solar panels on the roof along with a rainwater harvesting system which makes it perfect for off-grid locations – this way businesses can save on the high rent they would usually pay in big cities. The container suspension frees up the ground space for organizing recreational outdoor activities (or even parking!) and gives the elevation needed for natural light.

These ICU pods are called CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments) which means “cure” in Latin (doesn’t that make you feel a little better?) and these will help take some load off the hospitals, especially in Italy. Ratti’s Studio, Carlo Ratti Associati, and MIT’s Senseable City Lab are creating mobile field hospitals with these CURA Intensive Care pods that serve as a biocontainment unit for two patients at a time. The pods can be assembled and disassembled very quickly, and because it is a shipping container, they can be moved from epicenter to epicenter by road, rail, and ship, around the world to address the need for more ICUs. The units are designed in repurposed 6.1-meter-long (approximately 8 feet x 8.5 feet) shipping containers with a ventilation system that generates negative pressure inside – this prevents the contaminated air from escaping thus reducing the risk of infecting health professionals who are more vulnerable because of a shortage of protective gear.

 This two-story home crafted from shipping container materials and sapele wood is designed to rise and fall with the natural changes in sea level as we battle climate change. Kairu is a variation of the Japanese word for frog which is an homage to the water-based home. The area is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy even after a decade and could use innovative reconstruction. That is where Kairu House comes in as an affordable, sustainable, and resilient home. It will become the primary residence for the founder and principal architect of Rekstur and his family. The main building is made of two 40-feet-tall shipping containers.

Grillagh Water House by Patrick Bradley is made up of four stacked shipping containers! A balcony shaded by steel fins projects from the upper story of this house in Northern Ireland, which this architect and farmer built using four used shipping containers. “I didn’t want to change the idea or the aesthetics of the design but I had to come up with an alternative that was more affordable and that’s where the idea for shipping containers came from,” says Bradley.

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has stacked 29 recycled shipping containers to make a Starbucks coffee shop alongside a shopping center in Hualien, Taiwan. The white containers have been put together to create a 320-square-meter cafe!

London architect James Whitaker depicts a proposal for a low-cost studio space in Germany comprising a cluster of shipping containers, which are arranged to allow direct sunlight into the interior at different times of the day.

 ‘Flowers in the Garden’ was designed to be a hybrid of communal workspace and a garden. The project challenges traditional office settings by integrating the natural environment as a part of the whole workspace. It is an organic but playful structure with soft screens and in-between green-buffering spaces that creates a diverse ecosystem of perforated mass that is always ‘breathing’. This office design lets you stay healthily distanced but not socially separated and provides a refreshing break from staring at your screens.

Cat Person provides ‘whole cat care,’ as they call it, which means they’ve considered everything, even giving the shipping containers a second purpose. The team at Cat Person knows that your cat will inevitably find its way to a cardboard box in the recycling corner, so they’ve made their shipping containers convertible into feline-friendly toys. Cat Person looked to industrial design to make further use of cardboard boxes and found transformation possible in corrugated cardboard and seams. Chris Granneberg, a California-based industrial designer, SLATE, a San Francisco-based strategic design studio, and Paul Davis, a UK-based illustrator, were all called on by Cat Person to seamlessly turn their cardboard shipping boxes into playhouses fit for felines.

This shipping container has been repurposed into a floating home that adapts to changing sea levels!

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When you are apartment hunting in New York City, one of the common phrases used is “it’s the size of a container” to indicate how tiny the home is. But what if when you say “container” you actually mean a floating modern home off the Rockaway peninsula in Jamaica Bay? Or you could call it Kairu House! This two-story home crafted from shipping container materials and sapele wood is designed to rise and fall with the natural changes in sea level as we battle climate change. Kairu is a variation of the Japanese word for frog which is an homage to the water-based home.

The area is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy even after a decade and could use innovative reconstruction. That is where Kairu House comes in as an affordable, sustainable, and resilient home. It will become the primary residence for the founder and principal architect of Rekstur and his family. The main building is made of two 40-feet-tall shipping containers. The repurposed containers are cut in half (diagonally) and stacked on top of each other to make separate floors. The two steel sectional barges were welded together to create a single platform for the house which is docked at a local marina. It is spacious on the inside and the interiors are contemporary, modern, and bring in natural light and add a playful aesthetic with colorful accents.

The 470-square-feet home includes a bedroom, bathroom, and living space on the first floor. The second floor is where you will find a kitchen, dining room, and two gorgeous decks that overlook the bay. The awning windows have been made from repurposed doors while the staircase and framed front door are custom-made from steel. I personally love the stone bathroom sink which is a fun accent piece and also other details like the black granite kitchen counters and the kitchen backsplash made from handmade turquoise tiles!

“The goal of the project was to build a resilient, sustainable residence that responded to the needs of the environment but didn’t sacrifice the comforts of modern living. Building and living on water has been an incredible experience. Architecture on water has a more immediate need to be in tune with natural surroundings, and I’m grateful that this project has put me in closer touch with the local environment,” said Rekstur’s principal architect Adam Wiesehan. I, for one, would move in to a floating house in New York City in a heartbeat because rats cannot swim and I would have incredible views!

Designer: Rekstur

This tiny house is actually a clean energy powered, self-sufficient, repurposed shipping container!

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We are adding Gaia by Pin-Up Houses to our list of the most incredible tiny houses! Gaia is a discarded shipping container turned into a cozy, self-sufficient home fitted with the latest technology to match your modern lifestyle. It was designed to be an alternative solution to traditional housing and reduce the negative impact on the environment.

One of the main features of the experimental off-the-grid housing project is that it harvests solar and wind energy. Gaia doesn’t rely on external sources of energy or water which is vital in the current climate crisis as well as the future. It comes equipped with solar panels and a wind turbine so the batteries will be fully charged at any time of the day and during all seasons. You can monitor the battery levels through a mobile app even if you are on the go. The tine home has been designed inside a marine HC 6 m container featuring wooden studs and spruce plywood in the interiors. Another clever detail is the container’s roof which covered with a galvanized corrugated metal sheet that extends out beyond the structure. This increases the rainwater collection and is stored in a 1000-IBC tank

The rainwater is then filtered and distributed to the bathroom and kitchen through the house’s systems. Gaia comes with a refrigerator, water heater, and other 12 V and 24 V appliances based on your needs. If your appliance needs a higher voltage of 110 V to 230 V, it can be generated using an inverter. Pin-up Houses has also maximized the limited area by including compact storage, a convertible sofa-bed, space-saving stools, and tables. The outdoor terrace can also be folded to close the container using the winch, this way you can have your privacy.

All the walls inside are sprayed with thermal insulation (spray foam) making sure it is habitable all around the year and not just treated as a summer cabin. However, spray foam is also highly combustible fossil fuel. But to ensure safety, the woodstove is properly shielded with steel on the floor and behind. The team has also made sure to include a lot of exit points. Another point to note for the environmentally cautious residents is that the bathroom is a bathroom – a Porta-Potti style chemical toilet where the bottom half is a suitcase full of waste and formaldehyde chemical which has to be taken elsewhere to be safely discarded.  This could be fixed up by swapping it for a small compost-friendly toilet to further reduce the environmental impact of the house.

The container is pretty spacious despite its size and doesn’t feel cramped or claustrophobic for the residents with how well each corner has been utilized for maximum functionality. Gaia is modern, self-sustaining, and economical for those looking to lead a more sustainable lifestyle while also being homeowners with enough savings leftover after their investment. It is still a prototype so a lot of the systems can be improved to make them more sustainable. Ten extra points for the wonderful draw-bridge style deck!

Designer: Pin-Up Houses

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These cardboard shipping containers transform into castles to serve your cats better!

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Cats are described as being a lot of things: catty, being one of them, low maintenance, is another. Cats generally take care of their own and have more fun exploring than playing tug-of-war. While cats get along just fine without the frills of marketing or zany toys from the canine aisle, Cat Person, a direct-to-consumer cat lifestyle brand aims to create solutions that improve the quality of their life and bring some curated games of curiosity to the cat’s world of crunchy paper bags and light-up laser toys.

Cat Person provides ‘whole cat care,’ as they call it, which means they’ve considered everything, even giving the shipping containers a second purpose. The team at Cat Person knows that your cat will inevitably find its way to a cardboard box in the recycling corner, so they’ve made their shipping containers convertible into feline-friendly toys. Cat Person looked to industrial design to make further use of cardboard boxes and found transformation possible in corrugated cardboard and seams. Chris Granneberg, a California-based industrial designer, collaborated with Cat Person to seamlessly turn Cat Person’s cardboard shipping boxes into playhouses fit for felines. Since Cat Person is all about strengthening the bond between cat and person, Granneberg knew he had to design the boxes in such a way that fully embraced that bond. Granneberg constructed a second life for Cat Person’s shipping boxes by implementing a similar building method to that of cardboard castles and pop-up storybooks.

The external shape of Cat Person’s shipping boxes was maintained by taking advantage of all the interior space. Granneberg designed three shipping containers for Cat Person, each forming different structures. The first, which contains initial orders for Cat Person customers, is the trial shipper and that transforms into the Paw Puzzler, a custom mailer box with a perforated corrugate tray that transforms into a shorter box dotted with holes large enough for a toy ball and your cat’s paw. The second shipping container is fitted to ship Cat Person’s most frequently bought store items, reshapes into the Cat Chalet, similar to a cardboard castle formation, with elongated dust flaps that nest together to become a peaked roof. The last shipping container is sized for the larger orders and converts into a Cat Condo much like the Cat Chalet, except the Condo’s elongated dust flaps are used to bend and separate the box into two rooms for cats to crawl between.

The creatives at Cat Person reached out to Granneberg in order to ensure that each box was given the proper attention and care needed to turn them into sustainable playgrounds for cats. By giving the shipping containers dual-purpose, Cat Person and Granneberg gave the common cardboard box a second life. If I know anything about cats though, my guess is that these cardboard castles might take on a third life in the form of scratching posts and chew toys, but as long as it’s not the couch.

Designer: Chris Granneberg x Cat Person

These repurposed shipping container offices are designed to be economic and eco-friendly!

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Repurposing shipping containers to create homes and offices is a sustainable trend that is gaining momentum. Similar to the tiny houses, these structures are compact, modular and can be designed to fit any purpose that you may have for a place -right from a remote campus, ICU pods, office network, or even a small town. The possibilities are endless and CAPSA Containers hosted a competition, ‘Design for Tomorrow’ that is focused on innovative and alternative construction solutions. Construction is responsible for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions so these designs can help us build more responsibly and sustainably – they are ecological, economic, and meet the societal expectation of doing better with less, reducing environmental footprint, and limiting the consumption of natural resources.

“Bio-based materials, recycled, reused, smart, and sustainable construction will be our tools to meet these challenges. In the diversity of offer that the construction offers today, the marine container is an alternative offering a great number of assets: modularity, mobility, scalability,” says the team at CAPSA.

Designers: Bureau Agreste by Hugues Hernandez, Morgan Baufils, and Ariane Marty. Flowers in the Garden by Eu Jin Lim. Side Up Project by Mengfan Sha, Wang, and Zhang.

The winner is ‘Bureau Agreste’ – a modern shipping container office that provides professionals with a dedicated working space. The contemporary aesthetic masks the fact that it is an eco-friendly space. It has two levels with an open floor plan that makes it feel roomier and encourages productivity. It also features solar panels on the roof along with a rainwater harvesting system which makes it perfect for off-grid locations – this way businesses can save on the high rent they would usually pay in big cities. The container suspension frees up the ground space for organizing recreational outdoor activities (or even parking!) and gives the elevation needed for natural light. The first floor is organized concentrically around the central point of arrival, from the collective space (exchange and debate) to the intimate space (concentration and introspection). “The project aims to a certain resilience and seeks to minimize its ecological impact, by the use of recycling end-of-life containers, rainwater recovery tank, photovoltaic panels, dry toilets, wood stove, ceiling fan or even the use of bio-sourced materials from the local industry,” says the winning design team.

The second place was awarded to ‘Flowers in the Garden’ which was designed to be a hybrid of communal workspace and a garden. The project challenges traditional office settings by integrating the natural environment as a part of the whole workspace. It is an organic but playful structure with soft screens and in-between green-buffering spaces that creates a diverse ecosystem of perforated mass that is always ‘breathing’. This office design lets you stay healthily distanced but not socially separated and provides a refreshing break from staring at your screens.

The third place goes to the ‘Side Up Project’ that creatively transforms shipping containers into a semi-open space. It uses containers like LEGO blocks and combines multiple ‘side-up’ containers to form a flex space that could be used for work, camps, exhibitions, or events. The design turns the closed, small individual containers into a connected entity allowing occupants to move freely through the space while creating pockets that can be used for specific purposes. Not only is it a place for productivity and collaboration, but also a catalyst for future sustainable working communities.

Transformable to infinity, these repurposed shipping containers are the ideal ingredient for the wildest architectural projects while reducing the construction industry’s negative impact on the environment. These sustainable workplaces are definitely one of the coolest office designs we’ve seen!