“We’re still trying to overcome the idea that a steel box is not a good place to live. People think bricks and mortar are eternal, but that’s not the case. Gradually the psychology is changing. I think we will see many more housing projects using containers in future,” Quinten de Gooijer told the the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, which explored the growing use of shipping containers as housing. 

De Gooijer designed Wenckehof, a shipping container housing complex located in Amsterdam. It’s the largest development of its kind in the world, according to The Guardian.   

Built in 2006, it was to have been a temporary housing experiment. But it proved so popular with students that it was given permanent status by Amsterdam authorities in 2011, the newspaper said.

Advocates for shipping container homes say they are a viable option for urban housing because of the speed of installation, cost savings on materials and the ability to re-use units in new locations, the newspaper reported. 

“There’s longevity built into this kind of steel. It can be used again and again," Canadian architect Keith Dewey told the newspaper. Dewey used shipping containers to build his own three-bedroom family home in British Columbia.

"I see this as one of the first recycled solutions to housing that’s really taken the imagination by storm. It’s going to become a bigger question: how are we going to make old materials useful again?”