We saw how versatile shipping containers are when building different structures, why not build a luxury beach house out of them. We can get inspired from The Redondo Beach House project, which turned out to be a award winning family residence.

Built by the famous architect Peter DeMaria, one of the country’s first architects to incorporate steel cargo containers into residential designs, located in Southern California, the house won the American Institute of Architecture’s Excellence in Design Innovation Award in 2007.

In DeMaria’s hybrid design for the Redondo Beach container house, conventional stick-frame construction combined eight re-purposed steel shipping containers to form the two-story home. The containers were retrofitted off-site, helping to reduce labor costs during installation.

To play up the industrial good looks of the containers, the homeowners chose not to cover-up the corrugated steel walls with siding or to replace the sturdy maritime wood floors that come standard in cargo boxes. In addition to the open main living area, the Redondo Beach container house has four bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths.

Thanks to the solar energy and placing the building facing the sun, the Redondo Beach container house remains cool and comfortable all year long. The swimming pool is also a re-purposed container.

The architect choose shipping containers because of their sturdy structure, cost effectiveness, resistant to fire, mold, termites, and made of heavy-gauge steel, a material meant to last for centuries.

For long-term energy savings and environmental protection, low-flow plumbing fixtures, LED lights, and Energy Star appliances were installed throughout the house. Stick-frame walls were insulated with UltraTouch, a recycled denim material, and the rooftops and walls of the containers were painted with a thick coat of white ceramic insulating paint originally developed by NASA.

Also the Redondo Beach container house features a wide opening of 20-foot-high living room, outfitted with glass-panel airplane hangar doors that fold out to create a seamless indoor-outdoor living space.  

It is a perfect house for nature lovers. During this project, you can see how a common shipping container is transformed into a residence. When all light turns on, it views a marvelous look at night.

Credits: DeMaria Design and bobvila.com