It’s hard to tell from the outside, but this beautiful home in Quebec was built with seven recycled shipping containers.  This 3,000 square foot home cost just $175,000 to build and was designed by Bernard Morin and Joyce Labelle from Maison Idekit Homes.  They specialize in building homes from a shipping container base and claim that the building time can be reduced to as little as a week and save a significant amount of money.  A chalet built with just three shipping containers runs about $45,000 and can be customized to the home-owner’s specifications.

The building itself is covered with urethane [...]

We’ve witnessed some innovative re-uses of shipping containers in the past from retail pop-up shops to portable health clinics, but the Müvbox Restaurant located in Montreal’s Old Port is particularly stunning. The website explains the modular design:
Created from an old shipping container powered by solar energy, this concept is a modern-day reinvention of the
old-fashioned canteen which creates an experience that’s environmentally-friendly, ethical and affordable. Every night, Müvbox vanishes back into its cube, redeploying early the next morning in less than two minutes, at the touch of a button!
In keeping with the underlying notion of sustainability, the restaurant dishes out high-end [...]

Shipping containers – noteworthy for their modularity, durability and availability – have long provided material and inspiration for designers and architects looking for new ways of envisioning and constructing our physical environment. We’ve seen these steel behemoths transformed into everything from pop-up shops to dwellings, giving second life to objects that would otherwise simply take up space. Adding to that list of creative reuse is Containers 2 Clinics, an ongoing project that seeks to bring healthcare services to underserved communities in developing countries around the world. Their website explains the thinking behind their mission:
A shipping container, once retrofitted for use [...]