Six Oaks Container Home

Imagine a shipping container home set on a forested mountainside, blending into nature and truly becoming one with the environment. Through the use of light, texture, and thoughtful placement, the Six Oaks Container Home perfectly captures the desires of its owners.

We’ve talked before about how the strength and flexibility of containers let you make a home that works with the physical constraints you’re under, and this home is a great example of that in action. There are several ways in which that purposefully happened.

The roughly 11-acre building site of this container home was particularly challenging. Set inside a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains, access roads were narrow and flat areas for construction were hard to find. While the owners eventually settled on a nice clearing to hold the home itself, they still needed to provide a way for trucks and cranes to get there, plus room to assemble the containers. They also had the slope to deal with and didn’t want to have to use heavy equipment to move tons of soil.

With container construction, they were able to move the partially prefabricated house into position piece by piece. And their foundation design meant there was a minimal disturbance of the forest floor and the tree roots underneath. They chose to have the visitor access to the home via an elevated bridge from the hillside road, so you actually enter the home on the second floor!

The designers were also able to strategically take advantage of views and sunlight with the containers. By starting with solid containers and removing specific sections to frame desired views of the land, they were able to approach everything differently from a structural and aesthetic standpoint. It’s a perspective that probably wouldn’t have been possible if the designer hadn’t actually camped out on the land overnight with the owners to get a feel for views and lighting.

The owners, who normally live in San Jose, intended for the home to be a weekend retreat in the forest. So while the home didn’t need to be large, they wanted it to feel light and airy while also maintaining security and sustainability. They chose containers to achieve all of those goals, while also subtly referencing the history of the land (The South Pacific Coast Railway Line ran nearby in a bygone era).

They began with four 40ft containers but took a novel approach. The containers were cut into six smaller sections and the largest resulting piece was only 30 ft long. This made for easier movement of the containers down the winding roads, narrow bridges, and tree-filled construction area of the project.

However, each of the six container pieces was modified further before leaving the factory. This included five glass doors, nine skylights, and 23 windows, while the exterior color and texture were left as-is. By the time the boxes arrived on site and were assembled, the home was well on its way to being complete.

The manner in which the container sections were assembled merits discussion. The containers were positioned and stacked around a four-foot gap running all the way through the home. This area became the backbone of the home, connecting the various areas and more importantly allowing light and air to move throughout the interior.

With a flooring made of grated metal, both air and sunlight could seamlessly transition through the backbone between the levels of the home as well. This same four-foot wide area extends outdoors to become the footbridge we previously mentioned. Your eye really appreciates the consistent lines that move across the entire home.

Elsewhere in the home, the containers’ existing plywood flooring was left intact save for a light refinishing. Coupled with the staircase treads salvaged from a tree felled during the construction process, the home’s interior is full of rich wood tones that feel right at place in the forest atmosphere. For the walls, gypsum board (sheetrock) was primarily used to encase the interior of the containers and provide a place for mechanical, plumbing, and electrical runs…as well as the closed-cell polyiso insulation.

The open floorplan includes a kitchen and dining area, living room, bedroom, and sleeping nook with bunkbeds. There’s also indoor bathrooms in addition to an outdoor shower that’s great after long days of playing in the woods.

Getting the home built was certainly a challenge. California has a reputation for being sticklers to building regulations, and that proved to be true despite the somewhat rural location. Just to pour the foundation and erect the containers required geotechnical consultants doing soil analysis along with structural engineers to approve the modifications and stacking. There was also stringent fire protection requirements that had to be met, which was probably a good thing given the forest location!

With all that in mind, readers will hopefully understand the price of the home. The owner estimated that about $600,000 went into the design and construction, which definitely comes in at a high cost per square foot. But building in a rural location, on a challenging building site, in California, with an out of the box design, and numerous third-party consultants…well, the price starts to make sense.

Regardless of the price, you have to appreciate the design of this home. The light-filled backbone between the two sections of the home’s containers is a value-added feature that others can surely repurpose. And the subdued exterior appearance mixed with the abundant windows and skylights creates a home that now only looks in-place in the forest, it helps to bring the forest indoors.