| Floor Plan / Drawing |
| Location |
| Project | Moseley-Mathesius Residence |
| Containers | 11 |
| Area | 7200 sqft |
| Bedrooms | 3 |
| Bathrooms | 2 |
| Owners | Martha Moseley and Bill Mathesius |
| Photography | Ike Edeani |
| Year | 2015 |
| Location | Yardley, Pennsylvania |
Just west of the New Jersey–Pennsylvania border, in the Bucks County borough of Yardley, across the street from the Delaware River, the shipping container home of Martha Moseley and Bill Mathesius sits on a sizable lot. Fashioned from 11 shipping containers and a preexisting raised-concrete foundation, the three-level, 7,200-square-foot structure stands in stark contrast to the neighboring vernacular of prewar summer cottages. The couple were inspired to build using the distinctively industrial material upon realizing the length of the foundation—a botched, unrealized construction project of its previous owner—perfectly matched that of 45-foot-long containers. Mostly self-designed, and largely furnished with pieces designed by Mathesius himself, the structure is akin to a giant art project and manifestation of their personalities.
Purchasing a lot off the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, Martha Moseley and Bill Mathesius adapted an unused concrete foundation—remnants of its previous owner’s abandoned plans—to create a home that’s uniquely their own. “We were inspired by the site, and our desire to have something cool and different,” says Moseley.
Martha Moseley: There were little summer bungalows here in the ’30s and ’40s—that’s the way this community had developed. There was one here and it burned down, and so that owner decided to build a monster house. He put in all the concrete but abandoned the project. That’s part of what we purchased and very much what inspired us to build with shipping containers: this concrete foundation.
