Living in a shipping container home is nothing new, but until now Mexico has been somewhat slow to pick up on this worldwide trend.
That could be changing.
Although shipping container apartment complexes are becoming fashionable in major cities, these homes are still mainly sought after by individuals looking for an off-the-grid, low-maintenance, tiny home lifestyle, or tourism entrepreneurs eager to provide a novel accommodation experience for travelers.
You can build these homes yourself if you have the desire, patience and skills—dozens of YouTubers will guide you through the process. But don’t be swayed by a sexy three-minute time-lapse home build—the reality of purchasing and repurposing an old container and transforming it into a comfortable living space can be a complicated endeavor, that for novices may not turn out to be the cost-saving venture they originally imagined.
With land a-plenty, and given its lure for tourists, Mexico has often been touted as the next great location for container homes.
Although this “boom” hasn’t really happened, one forward-thinking furniture company that recently branched out into the container home market is taking a somewhat different approach. Three months ago, Tugow, a successful online company selling modern, European-style RTA (ready to assemble) furniture, opened a “showroom” for their container homes in the Providencia neighborhood of Guadalajara. Here, prospective clients can see these accommodations for themselves and learn how Tugow will design and build—and even furnish—a home to suit all tastes.
“We are always looking to see what’s happening elsewhere in the world,” Tugow General Director Jose Ramón Alonso Ferreria told the Reporter. “We try to be innovators and pioneers. Humanity is submerged in (a cycle) of excessive consumption and many people, especially the young, believe in the philosophy that materials should be reused before they are discarded. (Container homes) align with our vision as a company.”
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