Shipping containers are finding second lives as an affordable, green building material. As a building block, shipping containers are both durable and versatile.

In Los Angeles, there is an abundance of empty shipping containers – almost 140,000 containers sit empty at any one time in Port of Los Angeles. Major U.S. ports have surges of empty containers, as a result of one-way shipping, trade imbalances, and trade wars. The empty containers pile up at the ports, clogging up our trade infrastructure.

An array of resourceful, sustainably-minded companies are taking advantage of the underutilized containers, using them as the structural platform to create sturdy, modern, stylish new homes – customized to fit a variety of housing uses – from multistory apartment buildings to backyard homes.