Since shipping containers are made to be stacked, that’s how they’re usually arranged when reclaimed for architectural projects. It just makes sense, right? They fit together in a certain way. But architecture firm Whitaker Studio just smashed that convention in spectacular fashion with one of the most bonkers shipping container projects we’ve ever seen, and the results are as beautiful as they are unusual.

Rising from the rocky Joshua Tree desert in California like a rare flower, this all-white residence is laid out in a starburst shape with several shipping containers pivoted up toward the sky. Each container is capped with glass and oriented to take advantage of a certain view, whether of the sky, the distant mountains, or the adjacent boulders.

Each individual container either serves as a small room for the interior, or as a giant skylight bringing natural light into the core. Dining tables and beds can be spotted through the glass from outside, wedged into the narrow spaces. In some areas, several containers are combined with their walls removed to create larger rooms. The layout is hard to determine from the exterior, but once you see images of the 2,150-square-foot interior, it makes more sense.

Though these renderings are pretty convincing, construction on the Joshua Tree residence is not set to start until 2018 on a 90-acre plot owned by a film producer. Architect and studio founder James Whitaker told ArchDaily that the client and his friends were visiting the plot of land, imagining what should be placed there, when someone pulled out their laptop and showed the group an image of a structure he’d designed several years prior, but that had never been built.

The containers are arranged to fit within the topography of the site, angled wider in some areas to accommodate the hills and rocks, creating sheltered outdoor areas for decks and hot tubs. The site is set on a natural gully created by stormwater, so the containers are raised off the ground, allowing water to pass underneath.

Incredibly strong, durable, lightweight and affordable, shipping containers are integrated into into all sorts of architectural projects, whether they’re still highly visible components or completely disguised. Since the focus is on practicality and price, the resulting structures aren’t typically too pretty. These 10 converted shipping container houses, schools, galleries and train stations prove that in the right hands, reclaimed crates can be beautiful, too.

WFH Shipping Container House

You can’t even tell, from inside or out, that this home in Wuxi, China by ArcAgency was made from three shipping containers. It’s set on a steel frame and covered with a sustainable bamboo facade, and even features a solar cell-clad green roof. Producing more energy than it consumes, the modular unit is a prototype for this new way of building. In addition to being made into a single-family home, it could be stacked into multi-story townhouses.

Maison IEDEKIT Quebec Container House

Seven shipping containers form the basis of the Maison Idekit in Quebec, which disguises them from the outside but leaves them visible inside. The container shapes, covered in timber, can still be discerned from the house’s silhouette, some jutting out at angles and others stacked in the center. Maison Idekit helps homeowners craft containers into their own custom-designed, low-cost homes.

Container Corner House

Two shipping containers stacked at an angle take advantage of a tiny sliver of land in urban Tokyo, and can easily be moved as needed. Tomokazu Hayakawa architects split one of the containers in half to form the ground floor gallery spaces, with the second crate functioning as an office. They simply painted the exteriors black, but framed out the interiors as required by Japanese law. The hatch doors still open to let in light and air.

Whitney Studio Gallery + Education Space

When New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art needed a new gallery and education space, they turned to shipping container experts LOT-EK to craft a temporary low-cost structure that would see them through until the museum moved to a new location in 2015. Six containers stacked two-high are sliced diagonally, the operable windows highlighted in neon yellow. This cut-out detail makes the structure more dynamic, and improves air flow inside.

Rooms Within Rooms at the Adriance House

Not only do the 12 shipping containers that make up the Adriance House in Maine help hold up the glazed envelope that surrounds them, they also function as individual rooms within a room. Two of the containers are cut open on the ground level to connect the kitchen and living rooms to the common area, while the rest hold bedrooms, bathrooms, offices and lounges. The whole home measures 4,000 square feet and can be opened to the outdoors via a double-height garage door.

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Great Crates 10 Beautiful Shipping Container Conversions

Two colorful shipping containers set inside a garage-like outer structure form a spacious yet incredibly affordable family home free of the issues that can sometimes come with crate-based architecture, like poor insulation and soundproofing. The containers form two private rooms with loft space on each roof, while the envelope creates a courtyard and encourages air flow.

The outer structure features a section of transparent panels to bring in daylight, saving energy. Large sliding doors open the home to the air in nice weather, and translucent walls help blur the boundaries between outdoors and in a little bit more.

JYA-RCHITECTS designed the home for a family of seven in a rural South Korea village as an alternative to the dangerous, unsanitary housing they were previously living in. Sponsored by the Korea Child Fund, which improves living environments for low-income families, the project took on the challenge of creating a home that was large enough to make the family comfortable while sticking to an extremely tight budget.

The solution is a single-story home with both private and communal spaces, making use of unwanted, cheap, prefabricated and readily available materials. While the envelope was custom-created for the project, it’s easy to imagine this idea being replicated with garage or shed kits, putting possibilities for affordable DIY housing in the hands of people of all walks of life, all over the world.

A tiny slice of real estate in Brooklyn is now an affordable, low-impact multi-level residence made of five stacked and renovated shipping containers. Williamsburg couple Michele Bertomen and David Boyle bought a 6×12-meter lot that had been vacant for 60 years, squeezed between two brick buildings. Conventional building materials would have stretched their budget, so they set out to design and build a shipping container house with a total cost of just $50,000 (not including the lot).

That price is unheard of in New York City, and it took a lot of innovation – with more than a few bumps in the road – to make it happen. Getting the right permits took ten months, with city officials repeatedly requiring changes to the couple’s plans. Luckily Bertomen is an architect and Boyle a contractor, saving them a lot of money. Once the plans were done and the materials acquired, it took just a few hours to put it all together.

The shipping containers were purchased for $1,500 each and once assembled, create an interior space measuring nearly 1,600 square feet. The container walls are insulated with Super Therm, a paint that contains ceramic particles, and the home is heated with radiant heat that runs through the concrete floors.

Believed to be the first shipping container residence in New York City, the house features multiple outdoor areas (including a private porch for the couple’s dog) and a roof terrace. See a complete tour of the interior at Inhabitat and DNA Info.

Railroad cars are big, heavy, and cumbersome. They’re notoriously hard to move into new locations off of their tracks, and because of their odd shape most people wouldn’t think of using them for anything else anyway. But in the spirit of recycling, green construction and shipping container homes, some enterprising people are recycling old train cars into homes, offices and even hotels.

(images via: Jag9889, The Manimal, The Greenest Dollar, and Ramon)

With the mortgage industry in trouble and more people making the shift toward green housing, reusing train cars as homes is a logical step. Like shipping containers, it’s relatively easy to do the conversion yourself, provided you have the resources to get the car to its new location. Cabooses seem to be the most popular choice for train car homes, but there are plenty of dining and sleeping cars being converted as well. If you’re able to shell out between $8000 and $45,000 for an old car, another several thousand to transport the car and put it into place on your property, and whatever it takes in material and labor to transform it, you can have a home for much less than a conventional house would cost. And best of all, it will be completely unique and as green as you want it to be.

(images via: kgw.com)

This converted rail car home in Portland, Oregon, is a great example of how beautiful a home a converted railroad car can make. The outside may look plain, but on the inside it’s surprisingly luxurious. The home encompasses an impressive 807 square feet and features 10-foot-high ceilings, DSL, thoroughly new everything, a full electric kitchen, and an incinerator toilet. The siding it’s currently situation on is rented to the current owner for $150 a month, and since it’s not technically real estate there are no property taxes. The home is currently for sale, so if you want the train car home experience without renovating one yourself, now’s your chance.

(images via: HGTV and Roadside America)

If you’ve ever passed by the northern edge of Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California, chances are you’ve seen some pretty unusual houseboats moored there. One of the most unique is this one, made from an old railroad car. The car was once known as #41 on the San Francisco and Northern Pacific Railway in 1889. After it was retired in 1936, it was made into a land-based duplex and stayed put until 1979. At that time it was purchased to be made into this amazing houseboat. The home contains many of the original rail car bits, including the dining seats and some of the interior wood.

(images via: London Underground and Village Underground)

High above the London streets in Shoreditch, a few disused Tube carriages sit proudly, adorned with beautiful graffiti and shining with new life. They’re part of Village Underground, a collection of office and studio spaces that encompass the carriages above as well as a massive Victorian warehouse below. A wide variety of occupants take up the spaces, making a truly diverse and unique urban community encompassing some very distinctive recycled building elements.

(image via: Anne Vauclare)

Not all repurposed train cars are used as dwellings or offices. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of using the available material to solve the problem at hand. Though it’s not clear exactly where this train car bridge is or even how it got there – miles away from a highway or railroad network – it’s an amusing sight.

(images via: The Deptford Project)

In mid-2008, a remarkable project came together in Deptford, South London: a 1960s rail car was transported to the high street to become part of an urban reclamation arts project. The car was stripped and repurposed by designer Morag Myerscough, then turned into a café. The Deptford Project Café is now decorated with beautiful graffiti advertising its existence, and inside you can get a cup of sustainably-harvested coffee or a plate of locally produced treats.

(images via: Redcaboose Getaway B&B)

Some enterprising individuals put the homey feel of converted rail cars to good use as bed and breakfast rooms. The Redcaboose Getaway on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula manages to look both charming and exciting. If you ever wanted to be a train conductor as a kid, this is the place to live out that dream…sort of. The B&B features several cabooses, each of which is a separate guest chamber. There’s also a restored art deco dining car where the staff chef prepares breakfast each morning. The Olympic Peninsula is one of the must-see areas of the US, and this seems like an amazing place to call a temporary home while exploring the area.

(images via: Controversy B&B)

The Controversy B&B in Hoogwoud, Netherlands takes full advantage of the offbeat nature of the discarded train on its grounds. The compartment is 21 meters long and contains some truly wacky features: the sink basin in the bathroom is an old tire, the bed is a boat, and the jacuzzi tub is in the shape of a colorful sombrero. And if trains aren’t your thing, the transportation-themed property also features trams and a UFO.

(images via: Aurora Express B&B)

Fairbanks, Alaska boasts its own quirky railroad car bed and breakfast. The Aurora Express B&B features four historic railroad cars as sleeping chambers and one dining car. The cars were purchased from the Denali State Park Hotel for $1 each, with the agreement that the Wilson family would pay to transport them to their property. Today, the cars sit on 700 feet of private railroad track overlooking Fairbanks and the Tanana Valley.

(images via: English Russia)

Perhaps the most bizarre train reuse is the Russian trend of converting old train cars into Orthodox Christian churches. They range from the simple repurposing to the elaborate redesign, complete with adding an entirely new facade. The end result is an unusual but inspirational presentation, showing us that these industrial giants don’t need to be discarded when their working lives are over; they simply need someone who cares enough to give them new life.