I think it started as an affordable alternative to stick frame construction in a few instances where the containers were readily available, but I agree it's become something people want to do even when its not cost efficient in their area. On the other hand, why shouldn't building a house be as simple as joining two or three prefabricated, easily transported, container-sized modules together? It just needs the right price point.
[edit] There's a company called Bone Structure that has a modular steel building system that's almost a hybrid between pre-fab and on-site custom. Still expensive though.
Quite a lot of Finnish houses are build from prefabricated elements. One would typically just build a foundation and trucks would bring in the wall structures (not sure about roofs) and raise them. After that it's only about hvac, outer walls and interior.
Also, Finnish construction standards are quite high, not only because of climate :)
I suspect that modern prefab are far cheaper, greener and more flexible then containers, even when packaged 4 to the size of one container.
There is a certain kind of trash to house narrative that's incredible popular among a usually fairly well of segment of the population that make the whole container housing as the future of sustainability story too good to fact check for most news outlets.
The potential that containers aren't actually trash and might serve much better purposes in the trade or re-smelted then as hard to isolate houses. is one of those things you better not actually mention when writing about container housing.
>On the other hand, why shouldn't building a house be as simple as joining two or three prefabricated, easily transported, container-sized modules together? It just needs the right price point.
That actually exists already. Here is just one example.[1]
[edit] There's a company called Bone Structure that has a modular steel building system that's almost a hybrid between pre-fab and on-site custom. Still expensive though.