Still playing with the box

In between is a two-story frame structure, which will contain Anna's art studio on the first floor and the master bedroom above. Four smaller, 20-foot containers, joined to the rear of the right-side front containers, will house the kitchen and utility room on the first floor and two guest rooms on the second. Behind the kitchen is the living room, a 20-foot-high, steel girder and wood frame cube. All of the containers came from Florida where they were specifically modified for the Pirkls' project.

"I wanted to feel as if I was outside," says Anna, "especially in the living room, where I was going to spend most of my hours." The architect originally planned to use roll-up garage doors there, so the whole house merges with the environment.

"The living room would become our entire backyard," says Anna. "Then he found these airplane-hangar doors, which fold out instead of rolling up. And they're actually better, because you still get the light coming in from the windows above the doors, and if it rains, we can keep them open -- because when they're folded up, they extend out to form a kind of awning."

WHEN all the bills are totaled, the Pirkls hope to complete their, 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom, 3 1/2 -bath home for $125 a square foot -- half of the $250-$270 average for custom building in the area.

DeMaria, his associate, Christian Kienapfel, and the Pirkls concentrated on reducing cost without reducing content. Using the containers for over half of the house's structure yielded major savings. The container sections will have no internal or external sheathing. Anna and Sven decided they liked the look of the painted, corrugated container walls just the way they are, even with their original dents.

Insulation is provided by an innovative, NASA-developed ceramic coating, a little thicker than a credit card, sprayed on the interior and the exterior surfaces.

As in many South Bay homes, their house will not have air conditioning. To reduce maintenance to a minimum, durable, automotive-style acrylic paint has been sprayed over the insulation. The Pirkls see no reason to cover the original, industrial-strength wooden container floors. Electrical fixtures and conduit run unadorned throughout the house, with most electrical outlets built into the container floors.

"Over and over again," says DeMaria, "we're taking materials from other industries, reinterpreting or reapplying them to this scenario, and we come up with a reinvigorated thing, something with a fresh feeling to it.