This family home built from eight shipping containers took nearly three years to build.
Container House is a modular family residence near Stockholm, Sweden, built from eight shipping containers.
Shipping containers give new meaning to modular home design. Chosen for their structural integrity and pre-engineered construction, shipping containers are a durable, long-lasting option for home builders.
Måns Tham, architect and founder of Måns Tham Arkitektkontor, recently completed work on a multi-year shipping container project that houses a family of five.
Complemented by eight disused 20′ and 40′ shipping containers, the residence forms a tall geometric monolith on steep terrain near a lake on the outskirts of Stockholm.
Container House Named: “It’s like a flying Tetris block landing on steep granite rocks“.
Owners chose shipping containers for their long-lasting appeal, flexibility, and pre-engineered structural integrity.
Usually, all of this allows architects to quickly build shipping container homes, but that’s not always the case. In the case of the Container House, it took about three years to complete.
Built into a steep cliff, the location chosen for Container House posed some challenges.
The rugged terrain gives way to an unforgiving canyon, where rainwater collects before flowing into the lake. Working on such rough terrain is difficult when the main structural elements are rigid shipping containers with pre-set parameters.
The assembly of shipping containers often requires some form of compensation for their structural integrity. When the wall of a container is removed to join it with another to form a larger living space, part of the support built into the structure is also removed.
Tham found stability and efficiency in a design that supports three shipping containers on the ground floor, where an exterior entrance leads to the residence’s living room that flows into a guest bedroom, where guests can enjoy a service quarter, a laundry room and a bathroom. Just above ground level, four more shipping containers create space for an open-plan living space including a kitchen, living room and dining room.
At the same level, an outdoor terrace is delimited by an open-air metal structure that cradles a walkway to bring residents to the edge of the forest. On the largest floor of the residence there is also a bathroom, the master bedroom and three smaller bedrooms.
On top of all this, a single shipping container also serves as an observation level for residents to enjoy the view of the steep cliff and nearby lake.
Designate: Måns Tham Arkitektkontor