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You may be on to something. People are erecting steel buildings and making homes out of them now. We're seeing more of that in our area lately. Garage and house together in one structure. Which was something the wife and I considered.

But I'm glad we made the command decision to build the basement house. We're dug in to the hill tighter than a tick on a dog. Virtually no exterior maintenance with two thirds being underground, easy to heat and cool and all one level. We're not getting any younger.

One of the sites I visited looked at the idea of using these containers for earth sheltered houses. The studies showed them to be quite efficient in this regard.

Over in Europe and Asia are several developments centered on using the Intermodal containers for both offices and apartments. I know London has done some very interesting developments. Some of these remodels are astounding in their creativity.

Other non-traditional housing I've considered is the Monolithic Dome home. The MD home is built on an inflatable membrane (that becomes the outside ‘skin’ of the home). Inside the dome, the walls are sprayed with several layers of insulating foam. The final layer of foam contains re-bar and it is then sprayed with shotcrete (sprayable concrete). The walls of MD homes are about a foot thick and they are impervious to almost all natural or man-made forces. (The walls are also proof against a .30-06 rifle at pointblank range.) Checkout the Monolithic Dome Institute site.