A new environmentally friendly housing trend is making its first appearance in Vancouver with the construction of the city’s first house made partly out of used shipping containers

Located at 4211 S.E. 164th Ave., the large house being built around 11 former shipping containers is turning the eyes of passing motorists, who pull over to check out the unique structure. “Twenty to 30 people come up to my driveway every day,” said Edward Merced, the home’s designer and owner, in an email to The Columbian. It’s not just neighbors who have noticed the project: The home improvement network HGTV is interested in developing a segment on the home.

Merced is using three containers that are 20 feet long by eight feet wide, and eight containers that are 40 feet by eight feet, as major components of his 4,006 square-foot home. Some containers are stacked and rotated and are integrated into a wood-framed structure with a slanted roof. Merced declined to give any further information.

While the container home is unique in Vancouver, the unusual idea of building homes, small offices or outbuildings out of containers is catching on locally and nationally. While profitability is uneven, depending on costs of improvements, land and permitting, some see opportunities for creative new uses of containers that would otherwise site idle or be recycled.

Jeff Wallach, a Portland housing developer, was able to use this new technique to revitalize an old apartment complex in the city’s Multnomah Village, adding shipping container offices in the back courtyard to complement each apartment. “People in the apartments could go out back, walk fifty yards, and have additional space to work,” he said.