Recycled shipping containers are known to building designers and architects for their low cost and ease of use. They have been used in the construction of homes, housing developments, offices and commercial space for several years already, but there’s a new segment of architecture coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of this unique material: lodging and education facilities. Both are typically concerned with price and with the ease of installation of any new facilities, and shipping containers meet their requirements. These school, hotel and community center designs all take advantage of the many benefits offered by steel cargo containers. Click the thumbnails below for more images of and information on these amazing designs:

Steel shipping containers are the temporary homes of countless consumer items being transported all around the world. Items are packed into the cargo containers in their country of origin, then shipped to wherever they’re destined to be sold. Once they’re emptied at the appropriate port, many of these cargo containers simply sit around empty or get melted down for re-use. But recently, they’ve found new lives as homes and other types of buildings. Perhaps the two most appealing aspects of building with shipping containers are the affordability and the green construction factor: shipping container homes are far less expensive than new-material traditional homes, and reusing them rather than melting them down significantly reduces the carbon footprint of the steel containers.

But how does it feel to live in a shipping container? Most people who have built this type of home say that they’re sturdy and modern, and when several containers are connected the building can be just about any size, from a single-container loft to a multi-container family home. Some residents of shipping container homes and offices choose to display the origins of their buildings by leaving the facades alone. Others disguise the shipping containers by applying exteriors that make the recycled buildings look just like any other. Whether they’re rough around the edges or covered in cutting-edge design, shipping container homes are definitely going places. Click the thumbnails below for more images of and information on these amazing designs: