The Earth’s Population is growing rapidly, which raises the question of practicality in regards to living space. People around the world are becoming increasingly aware how their lifestyles affect the planet, and they are mostly ready to jump on the ecological bandwagon.
A big house with a spacious backyard is a dream-come-true for many people. However, in order to sustain this household, a lot of resources need to be put into it – constant repairs, electrical bills, watering the lawn and plants, it all takes a toll on the environment. The world is looking for the next popular home that leaves a significantly reduced environmental footprint. Enter – shipping container homes, a sustainable choice that’s been getting a lot of buzz lately.
Think about it
First of all, the point is to get a comfortable and low-energy living space that looks stylish. If you opt for a shipping container home, it has to begin with a carefully thought out floor plan. Since your possible shipping container home has a predefined shape and size, taking enough time to ruminate over the floor plan will decide how comfortable you are in your new home.
If your family is numerous, there’s a solution for this too. Many of these homes consist of several shipping containers that can even be placed one atop the other to serve as floors. People behind Australia’s Sea Containers offer the largest collection of new and secondhand shipping containers available in different grades, types and sizes, which you can choose dependent upon your needs and budget.
Perks
This trend is sweeping over the globe, and not only because it’s eco-friendly and sustainable. Due to shipping container home’s structure (in other words, it can be made of several parts) it’s easy to arrange it and tweak it in order to create the setup which you like the most. Designers are going out of their way to offer lively variations as far as shipping container living goes.
Minimalism is also a factor here. At this very moment, we are living in day and age when ornate architecture is considered passé and most people are turning towards simple stylistic solutions, as we, on a global scale, celebrate individualism and searching for a balance within, not reflecting it on aesthetics that surround us in a crass and overabundant way.
Owing to this postmodern frame of mind that has become relevant, shipping container homes have found their time under the spotlight.
Building blocks
The beauty of it is that a lot of these shipping containers you can use to “build” a home are essentially disposable items. You may find an economical and dependable storage solution in Australia’s sea containers, but after they are used, where most people see something disposable, architects and home designers of today see potential.
They might just become building blocks of tomorrow. In his bestselling science fiction novel “Ready Player One”, Ernest Cline predicts a future urban development in which people live in “stacks”, entire cities constructed of trailer homes piled on top of each other.
Considering the entire projects and large-scale buildings made out of container homes are emerging, this sort of ecological, communal living doesn’t sound like science fiction anymore.
Cargotecture
In fact, the phenomenon has become so well established, the shipping container architecture actually got its unique name – a portmanteau of words cargo and architecture – cargotecture. For now, in the first world countries, if they are not a fad, they are used due to their practicality – temporary bank branches are built out of containers, and sometimes even entire separated college wings while the building is under construction.
It’s growing reputation due to sturdiness, flexibility, low expense and eco-friendly mode (it takes up little space and doesn’t require brick and cement to be built or maintained) promises to turn it into something more than a passing trend.
The question now is how many people will see these shipping container homes as a potentially positive change? At the first glance, many are taken aback by the crudeness of the idea of living in a shipping container, but architects and designers are working really hard at the moment to popularize this form of “building”.
Soon enough, the time window of trendiness is going to pass, and it is up to us to make sure this solution is seen as something worthwhile.