São Paulo-based architecture practice Marilia Pellegrini Arquitetura has used old shipping containers to transform them into a modern and minimalist micro home in São Paulo, Brazil. 

The mini house, named Container House, covers only 60-square-metre area, which shows it is enough to live in with basic necessities. The architect's aim was to show how old materials or disused shipping containers can be transformed into a modern and functional house, featuring a high quality of living. 

"The concept of this type of project is based on the sustainability and reuse of materials," said the architect. "The time-frame for elaboration and execution of this model of construction is infinitely smaller, cleaner, faster, dry and with 100% reuse," she added.

"Despite the many advantages, there is still a certain mistrust created, motivated especially by the popularization of industrial and simple finishes for this type of building, creating cold and impersonal environments due to the physical final aspects of construction. Her first mission was to prove the opposite."

Brazilian architect Marilia Pellegrini first presented her concept "The Container House at the 2019 Casacor exhibition in São Paulo, an annual architecture and interior exhibition in São Paulo.

The house was made from two 40 feet (12,19 meter) containers attached alongside to side and this mini house includes a living, kitchen, and laundry space, in addition to an ensuite with a comfortable bathroom. 

The spaces were taken by shades of white that has a protagonist role in the function of expanding the space and composing the minimalist climate with an impeccable finish so that the container itself and all its industrial and corrugated structure would be imperceptible to the eyes. 

In the interior, the Japanese atmosphere of space rationalization and intelligent design is realized in the concept evoked by Kenya Hara, creative director of Muji, in his "design of emptiness" that was a great inspiration to the architect. Within this logic, Pellegrini used pieces of the acclaimed designer Oki Sato of Nendo, world-renowned design firm in Japan.

To coat the external facade for floors and brises-soleil, the architect chose Cosentino's ultra-compact Dekton surface. These materials, which reproduce the noble appearance of the marbles, has properties of high resistance to sun rays, scratches, stains, abrasion and were the architect's choice in this project because they can coat the container internally and externally giving a unified finish with sophistication and in this way it is not possible to say that the house was made from containers.

The choice of the container was guided by the needs of the contemporary world: "I thought the concept of the house could work very well, for example, as a pavilion for guests on a plot of an existing house," added the architect.

A minimalist design that competes with no style, not even with nature. "The container house also has an external area of 90 square meter with green area, fruit tree and a bench sculpted in Brazilian granite designed by the architect, mounted “in loco” with 204 identical stone plates forming a spiral."

Site plan

Floor plan

Sections

Elevations

Elevation

Layout sketch

Landscape diagram

All images © Ruy Teixeira

All drawings © Marilia Pellegrini Arquitetura

> via Marilia Pellegrini Arquitetura