Container Homes and Offices
Many structures based on shipping containers have already been constructed, and their uses, sizes, locations and appearances vary widely. When futurist Stewart Brand needed a place to assemble all the material he needed to write How Buildings Learn, he converted a shipping container into office space, and wrote up the conversion process in the same book.
Containers are in many ways an ideal building material because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. Architects as well as laypeople have used them to build many types of buildings such as homes, offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios and emergency shelters. They are also used to provide temporary secure spaces on construction sites and other venues on an "as is" basis instead of building shelters.