There is an urgent need worldwide for good, affordable housing. More than 800 million people live in urban slums1. One possible solution for this problem is through “cargotecture”—using shipping containers to build houses and other structures. There are an estimated 17 million shipping containers moving cargo on ships, trucks, and trains. Around two million, however, sit unused. More goods are imported in shipping containers to some countries than are exported to other parts of the world, and in some cases, it is actually cheaper to build new containers than to ship them back empty. Shipping containers have long been used to provide emergency shelter after disasters, but in recent years, they have also been used to build everything from simple houses to shopping malls to high-rise student dormitories.