He had already stacked containers two and three stories, but with his Ida apartment complex, Brian Stark went 85 feet high with 64 containers (on top of two floors of concrete culverts) to create North America’s tallest container building.

The 64-shipping-container tower packs features to avoid doomsday phenomena and could equally inspire preparedness experts and enthusiasts of “arcologies” (self-contained cities-within-a-building). For example, Ida reclaims the sidewalk and creates extra shade by using solar; it also gathers all Monsoon rains collected through the building to maintain native plants, storing the rest on a vertical container installed on one side.

All the containers have been well-used and dents are visible: Stark likes it this way. “Why we like using containers is they exist in our world already, so this building is 300 tonnes, 600,000 tonnes of steel that we didn’t have to build.” There are 18 condos, both one- and two-story, and all are made from high-cubes so they have expansive ceilings.

All the water that falls on the building is collected into one vertical container that acts as a cistern for irrigating the rooftop and surrounding landscaping and for washing the building. Solar panels cover the sidewalk in front, which helps to power the building but also provides much-needed shade for a desert city.

The IDA sits in the Roosevelt Row arts district and within a few blocks, Stark has two other container projects. We also visited the Churchill, a complex of 10 locally owned restaurants, bars and shops inside 20 containers. A few blocks away, we stopped at The Oscar which is 9 apartments and 2 offices from 24 containers.