House of Cubes

ECO-FRIENDLY CONTAINER LIVING TAKES SHAPE

The latest craze in architecture is coming soon to a city block near you. Stacked like Legos, the industrial-strength steel cargo shipping crates—which can easily be transported across the globe—are transformed into modern-looking pre-fab dwellings: from holiday cottages in Australia and student dorms in Amsterdam to private homes in Los Angeles. After Seattle-based architects Joel Egan and Robert Humble created the art-and-design firm HyBrid in 2003, Egan coined the evolving concept "cargotecture." "There is a movement toward sustainable architecture," Humble says, "and perhaps cargotecture is a convergence of pre fabricated and modular designs."

Avant-garde Japanese architect Shigeru Ban's Nomadic Museum, the permanent home of artist Gregory Colbert's traveling "Ashes and Snow" exhibition, uses cargo containers for walls, allowing the gallery to be easily constructed at almost any port in the world. Because of this flexibility, cargotecture may be the first step toward nomadic architecture. "We are proposing a health clinic in Sri Lanka," Humble says. "It could stay in a location for a matter of months and move again."

JESSICA FLINT