Shipping containers are often touted as some sort of godsend for a variety of housing conundrums. Plenty of shipping container homes are great examples of reusing an existing material, but don't get it twisted: Many steps—often costly—need to be taken to make comfortably inhabiting a shipping container possible. The trend of shipping containers as shelter has also crept into retail and hospitality design, and we've already poked fun at how far repurposing them has gone. Look, if you're into the aesthetic (and we are!) and can afford the cost to use them, great. But we believe that anything to the extreme is always bad (one exception: toile), so perhaps it's time to put the kibosh on shipping containers being repurposed into everything, from (albeit aesthetically pleasing) skyscrapers to brands trying to provide a place to connect with cool millennials at SXSW.
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