One of my heroes is a trucker from North Carolina, Malcolm McLean. In the 1950s he saw through the madness that was loading and unloading ships and vehicles, and invented the shipping container. Thankfully the dimensions have more or less remained standardised ever since. Slightly longer and taller ones are available but one of the primary features remains as Malcolm intended - they stack and tesselate in near endless combinations making for straightforward and efficient transportation.

Their use as residential dwellings has grown in popularity over the last couple of decades and it now seems, according to YouTube at least, that those not living in a van or tiny home have instead converted a shipping container.

Back in 2004 the idea of container living ignited a life-long fascination with perhaps the world’s most ubiquitous structure. While enjoying a beer in a city centre bar opposite a scruffy brownfield site, the apparent waste caught my attention. Why hadn’t someone installed habitable containers for the city’s homeless, key workers and overnight visitors? Surely the obvious solution to make the most of the land while the developer wrangled with planners and contractors prior to building yet another block of luxury apartments.

Some years later the 1st edition of Container Atlas was released by German publisher Gestalten, which proved the theory that there’s no such thing as a completely new idea. Someone somewhere will have thought of it first, or at the same time at least. The book is packed with brilliantly designed homes, offices and municipal facilities. The updated edition is still in print and available on Amazon. Fifteen years on, the first book still feels relevant, even more so given today’s global housing crises.

Converted containers have subsequently become the global go-to temporary structure to fill the gap between mobile pop-ups and permanent buildings.

During time working in London I commuted passed numerous container projects, Containerville in Bethnal Green a particular favourite, regularly visited Boxparks Shoreditch & Croydon and Pop Brixton. Now based in the South West, the Cargo complex on Whapping Wharf is nearly always on my itinerary.

Over two decades on from that initial ember of an idea, the fascination with the humble shipping container has yet to show signs of waning.