Container Homes That Open In 90 Seconds. Push Button Houses by Adam Kalkin.

Architect Adam Kalkin's Push Button homes are fascinating. A shipping container that unfolds with the push of a button in 90 seconds to reveal a living space complete with a bedroom, a bathroom, kitchenette, and living area.

The first Push Button House was originally displayed at Art Basel Miami in 2005. Built in a standard shipping container, the home, by architect Adam Kalkin, expands like a flower blossoming to reveal a modern and minimal living space.











Kalkin’s concept uses hydraulic power to lift and lower the sides of the shipping container, expanding the usable living space.



photographs by Peter Aaron.

The Push Button House was adapted by Illy for use as a temporary café at the Venice Biennale in June of 2007, and at the Time-Warner Center later that year (images courtesy of Tree Hugger).






His Push Button House 2, a revised version of his Push button House 1 was documented in the 12 minute short, shown below, by Snag Films.

Push Button House 2:


Part performance piece and part sculpture, the Push Button is an engineering and artistic feat that captured the attention of both the artistic community and public as a bold, yet playful vision on the intersection of art and technology.

This award winning short film has been featured at over a dozen international festivals including AFI Dallas, Newport Beach Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and featured preview footage at the Museum of Modern Art.

Adam is also the owner and designer of Quik House, a series of purchasable and customizable prefab shipping container homes.



Kalkin’s Push Button Houses are one of many shipping container concepts and homes that he has designed. See all his amazing work here.

Images courtesy of Adam Kalkin and Peter Aaron

I Dare You To Throw A Stone. Glass Houses & Furniture by Carlo Santambrogio and Ennio Arosio.

Santambrogiomilano, the brainchild of architect and ideator Carlo Santambrogio, is an entrepreneurial reality which realizes projects in glass with an exclusive character, unique pieces that can integrate themselves in all environments of daily life.

To showcase his glass furnishings collection named Simplicity (the individual items of which are shown later in this post), he has designed two transparent glass concept homes.









The collection named SIMPLICITY was born from the collaboration between Carlo Santambrogio and the designer Ennio Arosio with the aim of giving “transparent” shape to a precise and essential way of conceiving and living the spaces. The elements, even if strongly distinctive, do not overpower the atmosphere that surrounds them entering in perfect symbiosis with it.

Glass Staircase:




SIMPLICITY is realized in extra clear glass by Saint Gobain, tempered and stratified, named Diamant for its characteristics of extreme purity and brilliancy. It is interpreted in a unique way with the use of important thicknesses (30 mm) and treated with special technical procedures to guarantee total security.

Glass Bed:





The essential characteristic is the “unicity” of the single elements which permit to realize standard pieces as well as complex projects. Our creations can vary in shape, dimension and finishing every time, allowing a high level of personalization.

Glass Sofa:




The use of glass sheets in a structural way excludes the need of profiles or other supporting elements. This way we eliminate all what may distract the eye from a contemplation of pure shapes and extreme elegance, born to surprise and to spread aesthetical pleasure.

Glass Bookcase and Glass Shelves:




The tendency of integrating glass with different materials as wood becomes concrete also in the editions of the SIMPLICITY kitchen and tub.

Glass Kitchen:




Glass Bathroom, Basins and Bathtub:






Starting from the SIMPLICITY concept, mixture of joints and glass sheets, the surfaces vanish thanks to the transparency of the suspended planes and of the glass beams.



An incredible effect derives from the staircase with its structural elements entirely in glass, devoid of any steel profile, and standing out with its transparency and lightness.

Glass Chair and Glass Lamp:


Glass Benches:







For more information:
Santambrogiomilano
T + 39.02.76020788
Mail: info@santambrogiomilano.it