Building blocks

Green building, aside from making the world a healthier, more sustainable place, also makes beautiful use of some pretty interesting materials: manure, dirt and straw to name a few. It should come as no surprise then that one of the most interesting and modernist trends in the green building movement depends on what is probably the ugliest material—old shipping containers. Yes, the same shipping containers that travel here from Asia, then across the country on the backs of trains. They're big, they're kind of dingy, beaten-up, graffiti-ed even, and they make for a very green building alternative.

Similar to prefab housing, even considered a type of prefab in and of itself, building with shipping containers is attractive because of the ease of assembly as well as the fact that the containers are essentially a waste material. As this article at SFGate.com points out, "Many more full containers arrive on our shores than depart, so ports either ship them back empty—to the tune of about $900 per—or sell them."

Used containers are often insulated and are strong enough to be stacked extremely high (up to 12 containers). And, of course, despite their original state, can end up creating modern, beautiful homes. Take, for instance, Adam Kalkin's 12 Container House (pictured above).

The one thing to be sure of, when picking the containers you want to build with, is that the floors have not been treated with any unhealthy chemicals.

Image www.architectureandhygiene.com, Peter Aaron