A new kind of green building is being made from recycled shipping containers.
There is an upcoming Starbucks store in Seattle that was built primarily of four used shipping containers, according to The New York Times.
Starbucks is about to unveil a new store in suburban Seattle built primarily of four used shipping containers — the large steel boxes used to store goods as they are transported long distances on boats and trucks.
Containers have become a hot commodity in the green building movement because so many of them are piling up at American ports and are in need of recycling, said Peter DeMaria, the principal in a design firm that does a lot of work with them. "Due to the trade imbalance with China, millions of containers are left in our ports every year," he said.
DeMaria was an early adopter of container construction in the United States, first building a container-based house in Redondo Beach, Calif., in 2005. Since then he has built a gallery and condo building in the Venice area of Los Angeles, among other projects. He has worked with Target on a sample home for a design show.
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