Shipping Container Homes Are A Thing (And You're Going To Want One)

The tiny home trend continues to gain traction with those of us looking to cut down on excess and take on a simpler life. Like conventional homes, tiny pads now come in all shapes and sizes—from sleek, high-tech spaces to woodsy, quaint cabins. And the latest iteration of extreme living is even more out of the box.

"It's like the science experiment where you take a bit of salt and dangle it on a cotton thread into a jar of saline solution," Whitaker says of his inspiration for the space. "You leave it there for a little while, and your solution gravitates to the salt, and you end up with this crystal formation dangling on the end of the thread." Once it's complete, the 2,000-square-foot home will run on solar power and feature a private hot tub carved into the rocky terrain.

Shipping containers are, unsurprisingly, difficult materials to work with. They have a set size—about 8 feet wide, 8 feet high, and either 20 or 40 feet long—and their weight makes them trickier to transport than raw material.

"They present a whole manner of obstacles: They're roughly the same width as a double bed—so how do you fit a double bed into them? It's little, practical things like this that make them difficult to work with." At the same time, Whitaker says, challenging materials tend to lead themselves to more interesting designs. "Those obstacles generate ideas that might not have otherwise come to fruition."

The material's price point (you can find them for less than $1,000 apiece) and inherent sustainability are driving its more mainstream appeal. By using a container that would have otherwise gone to landfill, you're giving it a second life instead of relying on new raw materials. With upcycled clothing and home goods gaining traction, why shouldn't upcycled homes be next?