Shipping containers are suggested because they tend to offer a great base for construction on the cheap. They're solid structurally (since they need to be stacked, full 4/5 high) and they're very portable for getting to a site fully built. I don't think anyone is suggesting living in a raw container. They're just a great starting point.

There's a lot of creative ways to turn these into a home.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Shipping+Container+Houses...

As to calling the result

Shipping containers are a fetish among people who don't know what they are talking about - the pictures show two types of structures - structures few people can afford and structures few people would choose to live in.

None of them are as sensible as traditional modular housing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Shipping+Container+Houses...

From 2004-2010 I lived in both shipping containers (refitted) and trailers (basically 12' wide knock-down structures) and wooden shacks (and houses).

There are things I'd do with shipping containers to turn them into livable housing, but they go beyond a basic conversion -- it's cutting them apart and basically using them as a source of sheet steel and study frames. Normal steel structures or tilt-ups accomplish basically all of this already.

Prefab modules for things like kitchens/bathrooms, combined with inexpensive ways of enclosing space, is the way to go.

Thanks. Rare to hear from someone who has done this. Much more sense in the last line particularly than most of the rest of this thread.

There are lots of good examples here:

http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/shipping-con...

Like anything else, to do it well takes a good amount of effort.

One can make some surprisingly beautiful houses out of shipping containers. I can't find the link at the moment but one such company advertises in dwell magazine. Hopefully I can find it.

For houses featured in Dwell, shipping containers are merely a fetish incorporated into million dollar+ dwellings.

Shipping containers are uninsulated and have stressed skin construction - they require a lot of work to be used as a thermal envelop, or when incorporating fenestration (not to mention blowing out a whole side.

With the economic downturn, the glut of shipping containers is long gone and prices for used containers have risen significantly over the past several years.

A lot of those buildings which are featured in glossy architectural rags are actually built with custom modules, not actual containers because the dimensions of a standard shipping container are suitable for...well, shipping, not human habitation - 7'-10" inside height before interior ceiling and wall finishes are added (and that's if your insulation is exterior).

I believe it, but at a certain point you are just using the containers as a metal frame with sheet metal sides that you are cutting a lot of holes in, and at some point it would make more sense to just build a metal framed building in the first place.

I knew a guy who was living in a self-storage unit for a while.

Freelance hacker? Greatest swordfighter in the world? Used to deliver pizza? That guy?

Pretty cool guy, I hear.