Ever wonder what it would be like to work on a container ship, traveling across the Earth’s oceans and seeing its cities from a new perspective? Canadian photographer and sailor Jeffrey Tsang provides a window into world with videos like this one:

Spanning a month at sea, the sped-up images capture the barge’s journey from the Red Sea to Hong Kong. Around 80,000 photos shot in 4K depict “breathtaking views of quickly shifting skies, deep red sunsets, and brilliant blue lightening amidst ferocious storms,” per Colossal. For the full effect, enlarge it to full size, sit back and enjoy the ever-shifting weather and scenery.

Tsang has produced a huge collection of excellent videos detailing his life and work, giving viewers insights into the world of cargo shipping one container at a time with bridge tours, anchor demonstrations, safety explanations and reasons to (or not to) pursue a similar maritime career.

“Sailing in the open sea is a truly unique way to grasp how significantly small we are in the beautiful world,” the photographer says. “Chasing the endless horizon, witnessing the ever changing weather, and appreciating the bright stars and galaxies.”

His are not the only high-seas adventures out there for container fans and cargo lovers, however. Below is another documentary video worth a watch for those anyone interested in the inner working of these ocean-going behemoths.

New to cargo ships and how containers revolutionized shipping? Took a look at this explainer video from Vox and take a listen to the podcast series Containers produced by Alexis Madrigal.

Lifting cargo ships out of boat yards in the water up onto adjacent land, a Dutch design firm is creating a series of creatively recycled estates using maritime vessels that are no longer seaworthy.

The Dutch firm, Studio Komma, has dubbed their project the Marine-doc Estate. Their process involves matching different ships to ideal lots and landscapes while also maximizing connections between land and water.

The former merchant ships are spacious, lending themselves to large outdoor areas and expansive greened roofs. The original metal will be cut into to create windows and doors, but left sufficiently intact to retain structural integrity. Each ship is different, resulting in a series of unique homes bound together by a shared nautical heritage.

According to the architects, original features such as the stern, wheelhouse and foredeck will be enhanced with “sleek geometric shapes” on the exterior, combining modern features with original details. Measuring up to 200 feet in length, the elongated volume of the interior will be broken up with flexible partitions that will enable future residents to personalize the layout.

Anyone who has seen stacks of shipping containers and the huge cranes that move them at big ports knows they can make for a marvelous sight, but what happens when you overlay those rigid geometries on other landscapes?

Artist Mary Iverson, who lives near one such port in Seattle, combines paint and photographs to explore the results of globalization, intersecting natural and built environments with bright geometric cargo container boxes, ships and infrastructure.

“In following my interests and working to resolve an artistic dichotomy within myself,” she explains of her work, “between my love and nature and my fascination with the shipping industry, I came upon a visual solution that metaphorically echoes what we are facing in the world today.”

Architectural drawings often leave behind traces of perspective, hinted at in pencil before final forms are inked in pen. In her work, Iverson leaves those construction lines in place, then fills in gaps selectively to form containers.

“My paintings are colorful abstractions that spring from the theme of the industrial shipping terminal. The canvases feature mass accumulations of shipping containers and container cranes in various perspectives. My work employs a network of searching perspective lines and layers of interlocking, colorful planes and rectangles that suggest both deep space and flat surface.”

In both artificial and organic landscapes, the boxes introduce depth and scale, juxtaposing existing spaces with perspectives that align with new grids.

Iverson received her MFA in Painting from the University of Washington in 2002 and currently teaches painting and drawing at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, WA as a tenured faculty member. (via Colossal).

Cut from a massive decaying sea vessel, this hollowed-out section of hull has been transformed into a seating and performance space outside of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in South Korea.

Located in Seoul, the Temp’L features an original corroding exterior that contrasts with its freshly-painted white interior and an array of greenery adorning it inside and out.

A balcony and spiral staircase let visitors wind their way up inside this partial shell of the old ship, making their way to a semi-enclosed alcove shrouded by trees.

The red-and-white theme plays off of concrete and brick on the adjacent museum building while the shape and texture set it starkly apart.

“Any great cultural vestiges can lose their function,” says Shinslab Architecture. “In the same way, a material can also lose its original value over time.”

“The fact that the destiny of cultural relics is to be dismantled, should make us reflect upon what we need to consider for future generations.”

“Temp’L is designed from recycled steel parts from an old ship. It shows not only a beauty of structure, but it has also a recycling purpose…It provokes thought about beauty in our time, coming from a recent past.”

Shipping containers pass by us daily on trucks, trains and ships, carrying 90% of the world’s non-bulk cargo with them, but if you have ever wondered what the mysterious colors and brands really mean, you will want to keep a copy of The Container Guide by your side. A publication of the Infrastructure Observatory, this volume contains a wealth of information on virtually all of the major companies that together own and ship the planet’s 20 million containers back and forth across the globe.

Produced by Tim Hwang and Craig Cannon of the American Container Society, this waterproof, pocket-sized book contains maps, photos, logos, guides and tips to spotting cargo containers on (or off) ships around the world, handily searchable by region, color and brand. Part of the inspiration for this publication was the relative anonymity with which so many of these semi-mysterious companies seem to operate despite their size (a mere 100 companies control 9 out of 10 containers).

Like Networks of New York, a recently-published field guide to internet infrastructure, this guide draws both conceptual and design “inspiration from classic Audubon birding guides, is a practical field guide to identifying containers and the corporations that own them. Inside you’ll find virtually every major shipping concern brought to life in full-color on durable, tear- and water-resistant paper.” More than just a resource or reference, the guide taps into our deeper shared urge to understand everyday systems and those unnoticed elements of daily life in a globalizing world.

The book also features introductions covering the history of containerized shipping, the rise of refrigerated modules and an introduction to using cargo containers as homes. The first of these three contributors recalls the instigator of this shipping revolution, Malcolm McLean “a trucker by trade, who saw that a multimodal unit that could be seamlessly shifted from ship to truck to train would do to shipping what Henry T. Ford’s production line did for the automobile manufacturer.” Indeed, the use of standard modules has revolutionized the way we ship and helped ships become the dominant form of transportation for goods around the world.

Author and researcher Tim Hwang has more than a passing interest in large systems. A initial failed attempt to gain visitor access to a power plant led him to create the Infrastructure Observatory, a more official outfit to allow him and his fellows to check out everything from factories and roadways to global ports and waste water treatment plants. Last year, the group’s efforts culminated in a fantastic event (hopefully to be soon repeated) called MacroCity. This conference featured a series of panel discussions, presentations and a set of field trips around the Bay Area, including all kinds of professionals from landscape architects and dam engineers to topical authors and niche academics.

Born in San Francisco, the BAIO has now expanded to include a New York chapter that recently took a trip to the Global Containers Terminal in New Jersey. Upcoming plans include a series of tours surrounding the birthday of Victor Gruen, founder of the modern shopping mall. Longer term, Hwang hopes to see Infrastructure Observatory chapters grow in cities around the world. Meanwhile, he wears many other hats as well,  as co-founder of the Awesome Society, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Imgur and Director of the Intelligence & Autonomy Project at the Data & Society Research Institute among other past and ongoing pursuits.