WASHINGTON POST
by Ruth Eglash
November 5, 2014
SDEROT, Israel — What to do with rusty old shipping containers no longer fit to haul goods across the high seas?
Here in this southern Israeli town, they have been cleaned of rust, given a lick of paint and recycled into a chic but cheap living space, replete with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchenette and bathroom. Stacked atop one another, the worn boxes now constitute Israel’s first student village made solely of retired shipping containers.
Israel is not the first place to realize the value of the containers. Across the United States and Europe and in Australia, the hunks of metal have been refurbished and turned into luxury homes. In the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait, they have for years been used as rough, temporary housing for guest workers. And in Amsterdam, students have been living in the converted boxes since 2006, in the largest shipping container village built to date.
In Israel, where hundreds of thousands of people led by a group of university students took to the streets in 2011 to protest the high cost of living, converted containers are being used as a solution to the dire shortage of affordable student housing……
ArchitectGuy on Israel 