Nerds Republic

With space at a premium and resources dwindling on our overworked planet, more and more people are looking to reduce and reuse where they can. This applies to everything from food to clothing, but it’s especially worth considering when it comes to housing. Why not build your home with something that already exists?

That’s what these clever architects and designers have been doing. They’ve recently started building homes with large shipping containers. As it turns out, they make great houses.

1. The Tree House, Jerusalem, Israel

Golany Architects

These architects took a more rustic approach to the shipping container method, incorporating two massive Jerusalem pine trees that not only look nice, but also provide shade.

2. Casa el Tiemblo, Avila, Spain

James & Mau

These shipping containers weren’t redecorated much on the exterior, but the spacious interior and huge windows make up for that.

3. Crossbox House, Pont-Péan, France

CG Architectes

Each level of this gravity-defying home in France was created using two merged shipping containers. It has three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and a large living room. It was designed and built to showcase a cheaper alternative to traditional housing.

4. Zigloo Domestique, British Columbia, Canada

Zigloo

Made with eight 20-foot containers and a host of other recycled materials, this was one of the first shipping container houses in Canada. It’s a spacious, modern home, and it’s estimated that about 70 trees were spared by using containers instead of lumber.

5. Six Oaks Shipping Container Residence, California, U.S.

Modulus

This house was designed with the desire to wreak as little havoc as possible on its natural surroundings. Much of the interior was created using recycled redwood and plywood.

6. Kunsthalle, Berlin, Germany

Platoon

This is actually an event space rather than a home, but it’s still made with containers! It hosts workshops of all kinds.

7. Hybrid House, California, U.S.

Eco Tech

This spacious home was created using five shipping containers and recycled steel. It also features a movable roof and a water collection system.

8. Bunny Lane

Industrial Zombie

This house features a modern profile, but inside, the Bunny Lane house is a cozy stack of containers.

9. 12 Container House, Maine, U.S.

Adam Kalkin

Made with 12 shipping containers, this house opens right up to the great outdoors through a large, garage-style door. Stacked containers serve as the rooms, but the building still has a homey feel.

10. Jones-Glotfelty Shipping Container House, Arizona, U.S.

Ecosa Design

The recycled containers aren’t all that’s eco-friendly about this house. It also uses solar panels and comes equipped with an energy-efficient climate control system.

11. Containers of Hope, San Jose, Costa Rica

Benjamin Garcia Saxe

Architect Benjamin Garcia Saxe created this house for a couple who wanted to build their own home without driving themselves into debt. Made from two 40-foot containers, it’s a cheap, modern alternative to a traditional home.

12. Container Guest House, Texas, U.S.

Poteet Architects

This tiny guest house is only 320 square feet, but that’s all these minimalists need. The foundation is made from recycled telephone poles, and the flooring is repurposed bamboo. Despite its size, it’s rather luxurious.

13. Decameron Design Shop, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Studio MK 27

This design studio and shopping area features brightly painted containers. The containers are each little shops, and it makes for a colorful addition to the Sao Paulo neighborhood.

14. Caterpillar House, Santiago, Chile

Sebastian Irarravazal Architects

Built on a mountain overlooking the city, this 12-container house was cheap and easy to build. It also uses the mountain’s cool air for eco-friendly ventilation.

15. 2+ Weekend House, Trebnie, Slovenia

Jure Kotnik

Yes, this is real! These containers aren’t actually shipping containers, but modular sections created specifically for housing. With this approach, people can create houses that suit their specific needs.

16. The Port-a-Bach, New Plymouth, New Zealand

Bonnifait & Giesen

When folded out, this portable shelter can easily sleep six adults, and it even includes a bathroom and shower. The fold-out panel serves as a porch. When closed, it’s completely secure.

(via Digital Trends)

If living in a shipping container didn’t sound too awesome at first, you probably changed your mind after seeing what some clever design work can do.

Building your own house seems to be a goal for many people. Prospective homebuilders often see it as a symbol of self-reliance and ingenuity, and here at ViralNova, we’ve seen our share of pretty interesting DIY homes that are actually livable. Yet one of the most inventive building feats has to be that of Edouard T. Arsenault on Canada’s Prince Edward Island. His home is a small structure made of something most people would throw away.

From a distance, the house appears to be made of stones.

TripAdvisor

But get closer, and you start seeing the colorful patterns that make up the outer walls.

TripAdvisor

The house is made almost entirely of bottles.

TripAdvisor

The entire house is made from glass bottles in varying sizes and colors, collected by Arsenault and carefully assembled into the building you see here. In all, it took some 12,000 bottles, all collected by Arsenault personally, and 85 bags of cement to hold them together.

The house took six months to build, which doesn’t seem that long! It was completed in 1980.

TripAdvisor

Arsenault built it all by himself at the age of 66. He was inspired after seeing another bottle structure on a postcard sent to him by his daughter.

The house measures about 280 square feet, and the interior and exterior walls are all made from bottles.

TripAdvisor

Imagine what this must sound like in the rain.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor

Today, the bottle house is a tourist attraction and open to the public for tours. There are also two other bottle buildings on the grounds. Apparently, completing one house entirely out of bottles wasn’t enough!

Besides the house, Arsenault also constructed a bottle chapel, complete with an altar and pews.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor

There’s also a little tavern.

TripAdvisor

Besides being built from bottles, the tavern also houses a collection of Arsenault’s favorite bottles.

TripAdvisor

If he came across a particularly interesting bottle, Arsenault would place it here instead of building with it. Some of his more unique finds can be seen on the counter.

He even built an homage to the bottle structure that inspired him years prior: a giant bottle made of bottles!

TripAdvisor

(via Little Things and TripAdvisor)

The place is certainly unique, and its strangeness has made it a beloved spot for tourists. It was even featured on TV shows Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. If you’re interested in checking it out, see the house’s website for visiting information.

They say a home is reflective of the inhabitants. If that’s the case, these people are a hoot:

It’s no secret that oceans all over the world are facing a serious crisis due to pollution, overfishing, and habitat destruction. The ocean might seem like a faraway place to us humans, but we rely on it more than we may realize, and by hurting the ocean, we are ultimately hurting ourselves. Fortunately, one company is taking a step to clean things up.

Well-known sneaker manufacturer Adidas teamed up with Parley for the Oceans, a collaborative organization of creatives who are working to restore the oceans and all the creatures in them to their full health. Together, they’re creating a new sneaker from human-made detritus pulled from our planet’s oceans.

The shoes are created using plastic salvaged from the ocean. Most of it comes in the form of illegal deep-sea fishing nets — that’s all the green, ropey material you see here.

Instagram / parley.tv

The idea to create a shoe from the plastic came when an ally of Parley for the Oceans, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was tracking an illegal poaching vessel off the coast of West Africa. While tailing the ship, Sea Shepherd collected a huge amount of gillnets and other plastic items. Out of all that garbage came the idea for what to do with it.

After collecting all of these nets, an idea was born.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

And yes, they looked pretty hardcore while they cleaned up the planet.

Facebook / Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

So what could anyone possibly do with all this plastic netting? Well, the plastic was already in fiber form, and it was made to be very durable. What could be better for a sneaker?

The concept for the shoe was created in only six days, and it debuted at the UNx Parley event on June 29.

Instagram / parley.tv

This event, held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, covered pressing environmental concerns and ocean health.

Pulling the nets out of the ocean not only provides material for new products, but also gives immediate relief to creatures that get caught in them.

Instagram / parley.tv

In December of 2014, Sea Shepherd removed 72 kilometers of illegal netting from the Southern Ocean. They freed thousands of animals in the process.

The shoes are created using the plastic filaments and fibers that originally made up the gillnets.

Adidas

Adidas

They even retain some of the original turquoise coloring.

Currently, the shoes are still in their concept phase, which means they’re not yet available to the public — but they might be soon. Making shoes might seem like a small action, but Parley says that it’s just one of many possible solutions. “This first concept is only the beginning,” the organization explains via Instagram, “and an example of how impactful creative collaboration can be. The problems we face are many, but so are the solutions.”

Facebook / HOOKED

Facebook / Nautica y Yates Magazine

(via Colossal, My Modern Met)

Right now, these shoes are still in their prototype phase, and while there’s considerable excitement for them, they might not be commercially available for some time; even when they are, they may take a slightly different form. However, Adidas has decided that recycling is the way to go, and plans to incorporate recycled plastic into its products beginning next year. Currently, Adidas offers a line of recycled polyester items.

You can learn more about the efforts of Parley for the Oceans on their website, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also check out what the Sea Shepherds are up to on their website and Facebook page.

Would you wear garbage? With all the ways you can recycle materials, why wouldn’t you?

When buses get to the end of their lifespans, what happens to them? Well, if Hawaiian architecture firm Group 70 International gets its way, old city buses will have a whole new life ahead of them as mobile shelters, services, and recreation rooms. Together with volunteer organization LIFT, they’re hoping to complete renovations on 70 buses using donated materials.

The buses will become a fleet of community resources, including homeless shelters.

Group 70 International

Volunteers will remove the seats and other interior fixtures. They will then install new interiors for the buses’ new purpose.

Group 70 International

This design shows a bus that’s been turned into a produce stand.

Group 70 International

A bus like this could provide fresh, healthy foods to “food desert” areas without access to nutritional food.

Homelessness has lately been a huge problem in Hawaii, specifically on the island of Oahu. The local government there has earned criticism for their treatment of the homeless, including one suggestion to move the homeless population to another island. This project tackles the issue head-on, and would provide shelter, safety, and hygienic services to the homeless.

This design shows a bus that’s been turned into a shelter for homeless people.

Group 70 International

Some buses will have sleeping areas, and others will have showers that homeless people can use. The buses can even be divided in the center, so two families can use one bus and still have their privacy.

(via BoredPanda, Inhabitat)

Group 70 is just beginning this project, and hopes to complete two buses by the end of this summer. They have planned on designing the renovations to be easy to assemble, even by untrained volunteers. That way, the project can come together more quickly and get services available to people as soon as possible.

These days, as you’re well aware, technology is everywhere. But with the constant onslaught of new inventions and upgrades, we’re generating more and more potentially harmful waste. Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a major problem, especially when it comes to devices that contain heavy metals. But even the more harmless components — like the wires and plastic — have to end up somewhere.

Instead of letting these materials end up in a landfill, artist and sculptor Julie Alice Chappell turns them into something new. With her help, motherboards and wires become delicate, nature-inspired figures.

This collection, called Computer Component Bugs, blends natural forms with artificial materials to create something totally new.

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Chappell opted to use discarded materials like these as part of her work “because they comment on the accumulation of cultural debris and become their own subjective universes.”

She enjoys using the geometric forms of computer components when creating organic shapes, as many of the forms and formulas that make up technology are, in fact, found in nature. Her sculptures speak to both the disconnect of human activity from nature, as well as its inextricable tie to it.

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

While her work is beautiful, it also points to the ever-growing problems of pollution, consumption, and materialism in contemporary society. Chappell explains that upcycling is her “response to mankind’s cruelty, exploitation, and ruination of the natural world for financial greed.”

But her work also shows us the hidden beauty you can find in unexpected places. Many people find insects repulsive and see computers as simply being functional. However, by combining their forms, Chappell shows us that beauty can be found in both places. “With all their tiny components, complex circuitry, and bright metallic colors, I cannot help but compare them to the detailed patterns we see when we look at nature up close,” she says.

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Besides winged insects, Chappell also creates these little jumping spiders from computer parts.

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

Why? “Just for fun!” she says.

Facebook / Julie Alice Chappell Artist

(via Twisted Sifter)

Chappell’s work is pretty, and there’s no denying the beauty of nature. She hopes that her work will not only charm people with its delicate details and jewel-like colors, but will also serve as a reminder “that the natural world and environment are precious and in danger.”

You can see more of Chappell’s work on her Facebook and Etsy pages.