Ross Stevens, Wellington, New Zealand

We at MNN admire folks who know what they want and go out and do it, conventions be damned. That’s what Ross Stevens, an industrial design lecturer at Wellington’s Victoria University, did with his striking, modern shipping container home. Built from three smooth-skinned, slate-gray shipping containers stacked on top of each other like building blocks against a steep hillside, the Stevens abode, with its large windows and terraces, appears to be the ultimate shipping container home with a view.