If we’re not converting barns into bungalows, we’re shipping containers to dwell in. Emma Kuntze explores our strange need to live in storage.

See also…

• How tiny houses are hitting big in the UK
• The highs and lows of life on a London canal boat
• Moving house in London: 5 life-hack services that’ll sort you out
• The surprising luxury of underground homes
• Self-storage with a difference: all you have to do is pack

Perusing the London property listings the other day, we found several quite jaw-droppingly gorgeous warehouse conversions, all cavernous ceilings and minimal (read: expensive) kitchens. Even the one-bedroom offerings were priced over a million. It got us thinking: what is that perennial appeal of converting storage facilities into our homes? If it isn’t warehouses in the city, it’s barns in the country. Is it just a basic need for shelter or is it something more than that? An inbuilt desire to use the unusable, renew the decrepit or derelict? Or, maybe, it’s that living in storage is just kinda cool.

As much the vestige of beatniks in berets as self-facilitating media nodes, the appeal of the loft apartment never seems to fade. They’ve come a long way since the first lofts became popular in the SoHo area of New York in the 1940s and 1950s. Back then, they were an affordable option for artists – Jackson Pollack, Yoko Ono – whose large scale style of work required large, well-lit areas and who would take modest leases on cavernous spaces, because, well, no one else with an inch of sanity would step foot in the areas. Gradually, as is often the way, galleries opened on the ground floors, clients came, bought the work, and fell in with this new idea of space, eventually moving in themselves.

The idea of a warehouse as a home for struggling bohemian types is now so far removed from reality (Pollock’s own modest loft sold for $1.4 million last year), that perhaps it’s time for us to think about some other kind of storage into artful accommodation.

So, taking a look through this year’s RIBA awards, we became intrigued by a spectacular building by architect Patrick Bradley. It’s a beautiful cubist creation – and one you might have seen on Grand Designs last autumn – cantilevered over the rolling Northern Irish landscape. It’s also made from four shipping containers.

Yup. You read right. Shipping containers.

This isn’t a wholly new idea. There are several notable buildings in London right now made of this most utilitarian object: Container City has been part of the skyline in the Docklands for well over a decade. This building doesn’t try to hide what it is: the containers are stacked high and look to all intents and purposes like they’ve been appropriated from a passing tanker, but that’s the charm. The porthole windows and bright colours mean they suit the environment: it’s a nice nod to the area’s seafaring past and the units (most of which are studio spaces, with a few combining accommodation as well) are surprisingly spacious, light, airy and in many ways share that kind of openness you pay through the nose for in a converted factory or warehouse. What’s also fantastic is how fast they are to build. Container City II took just four days to install. As a fast housing solution, surely this has to be worth exploring further?

Pop Brixton, a joint initiative between the developer and Lambeth council which opened earlier this year, sought to utilize a brownfield site for a short term of three years, with units for rent at a considerably lower rate than the market average. Shipping containers, says architect Carl Turner, were the obvious choice for building material. Two years prior they had used one at Hackney City Farm and when looking for something that would be quick and easy to construct in Brixton, these topped the bill. In this case, apprentices from the local technical college helped with the construction phase, gaining valuable on-site experience, while many of the tenants have some link to the local area. In short? This low-cost building and cooperation with the council has meant that local business people are able to showcase their start-ups in their local communities. Brilliant.

There’s huge potential in the shipping container as a literal building block and the fact that, globally, people are experimenting with it suggests it is an idea worth trying. We’ve seen it done as stand-alone individual homes, where land’s plentiful, but there’s definitely an interest in seeing if it could work in a more highly densely populated area. Before we share something London-specific, special mention must be given to the recent Mumbai design competition which sought submissions for temporary housing for the slum areas of the city (see the image at the top of this article). The ideas are in equal measure completely bonkers and absolutely inspired.

Back in London (and back to reality!), a new prototype goes on show on September 19 as part of London Design Festival, which shows how the humble shipping container can work as the basis for more traditional housing. A New House for London is, as Carl Turner himself puts it, ‘a low rise, quickfire solution’ to the housing shortage. Built from two specially adapted containers, it is to be released as an open-source design. It could, Turner hopes, be built for as little as £25k – and with a little building nouse, could be done yourself. Whilst the footprint of the building is smaller than your average London house, it is well proportioned and liveable in, and – like its Tiny House counterparts – would enable many more to get onto the housing ladder. There’s an endless adaptability to the space as well, allowing for considerable creativity inside. There are no bright colours, porthole windows or stainless steel walls here: the containers are clad, and bear more resemblance to striking modernist design than they do to rusty orange boxes.

You can see the exhibition house outside The Building Centre (near the British Museum) for two weeks from September 19. Have a peek if you’re passing and see if you’re as intrigued as we are.

We can’t see anyone converting Boxman storage boxes into actual human living space anytime soon, but if you need some extra space in your proverbial shipping container, loft or barn, Boxman will deliver empty boxes to your door and come back to collect them when you’re done. A modern storage solution for a modern way of living!

Feature image: Container Skyscraper, Mumbai, by Ganti Associates