'Prefabricated components, solar power, airtight construction and a small footprint at this home, designed and built by a team of students at New Zealand’s Victoria University, earned third place in 2011 in the U.S. Solar Decathlon.

Now relocated to a picturesque beach at Hawkes Bay, its ecocredentials are quite possibly the greenest in New Zealand.'

Via Lauren Moss, Jessica Thyssen

One man’s trash is said to be another man’s treasure, and now old cargo shipping containers are rapidly becoming sought-after treasure in the architecture industry.

The term cargotecture, coined in 2005 by HyBrid Architecture, is used to describe any building partially or entirely built from recycled ISO shipping containers. It may seem strange that such a simple, aesthetically-unappealing box could be so loved by modern architects, but the increased use of reclaimed materials in architecture is starting to show no bounds.

In a world dominated by mass production, architects are being forced to find alternative ways of designing buildings that will make the smallest impact on the earth. Extending the life of discarded materials and saving salvageable items from landfill is a completely viable approach.

Shipping containers are resistant to fire, termites, hurricanes and earthquakes, proving themselves to be extremely resilient.

Somewhat like stacking blocks of Lego, steel or aluminum shipping containers are a perfectly strong building block...

Via Lauren Moss