These Shipping Container Houses Are Breathtaking — Here's How to Make Plans for Your Own

Building homes from used shipping containers is a trend growing in popularity. Without meddlesome HOAs or excessive building materials, these homes are an eco-friendly option for home seekers wanting to minimize their impact on the planet. They've also been suggested as one mitigation strategy for growing populations of unhoused individuals.

Tiny homes aren't legal in every state, so before you start your eco-conscious home journey, be sure your future shipping container home site complies with local and state ordinances.

Below, we've curated eco-friendly shipping container house plan ideas so you can build momentum and see your planet-friendly home dreams come to fruition. With enough know-how, sufficient funds, and creativity, these plans can help you help the Earth.

Set against a desert backdrop in Joshua Tree, Calif. with a pool and deck, this home is built from three shipping containers and is an innovative way to use space. Constructing this unique shipping container home entailed chasing several permits and ensuring stable ground and utilities, but the result was an awesome place for family and friends to hang out.

"Make it fun, make it cool, make it unique," Neil Chin of Box in the Rox said of building the house.

The bottom story is built from two 20-foot shipping containers; the living space in the middle story is a 40-foot shipping container; and the top story is a beautiful rooftop deck that overlooks mountains and trees. 

This plan incorporates modern landscaping and aesthetics beautifully and is a tremendous idea for those looking to share their innovative space as a rental home with others.

You needn't be a celebrity like Simon Rex to live off-grid in a shipping container home. Comprised of five 20-foot shipping containers in New Zealand, the home beautifully incorporates the wilderness around the home for the most stunning and scenic views.

"Best of all, this home is completely off the grid, with solar power, rainwater collection, and even a vermicomposting toilet," according to the Living Big In A Tiny House YouTube channel.

The Quadrum Ski and Yoga Resort 4 based in Gudauri, Ga., is an architectural marvel. Its use of windows to incorporate natural light and allow for scenic views can serve as the basis for your shipping container home.

No, we're not suggesting you hire a master Italian sculptor and stack containers in the snowy Caucasus Mountains — unless you have the financial means to do so — but we do think that repurposing steel, shipping containers, and other raw materials is a planet-friendly endeavor.

Imagine a beautiful day of volunteering at a beach cleanup with friends or watching seals from afar, then retiring to your beachfront shipping container home for the evening. It's a reality for this Dominican Republic shipping container homeowner who built a veritable summer getaway with this stunning home.

I love the number of windows, the way the home is nestled into the existing land, and the breathtaking views of DR and its water.