Steel shipping storage containers outlive their usefulness after 5 years, and they used to sit abandoned at shipyards gathering rust. Now, because they’re so durable, light weight and easy to stack, a new recycling trend has emerged. Everything from shipping container sculpture, homes, hotels and museums have started to appear. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

The simple, boxy shape of shipping containers makes them perfect for housing, whether creating a small recycled dwelling out of just one container or stacking multiple containers for a larger home or complex of small living spaces. Just as they can be transformed into housing complexes, shipping containers are perfectly suited for use as hotels. The world’s first shipping container hotel was built in Uxbridge, West London in 2008. The 8-story Travelodge was built from 86 modified shipping containers, and the whole process was said by the company to be 25 percent faster and 10 percent cheaper than conventional hotel buildings.

You can slap a door on a shipping container and call it a house, but it takes a bit more creativity to transform it into art. Check out these two examples from artists in Rotterdam and Yokohama, Japan.

Homes & Structures

Hotels

Museums

Related posts:

1. Did You Know: Recycled Packing Materials
2. Did You Know Stones Can Be Used For Solar Energy Storage?
3. Did You Know: That storage has become an art form?