Shipping Containers Fold Out into Two Story Houses in this Highly Doubtful Video

But when you step back into the real world, you have to take into account all sorts of other things. Stuff like earthquakes, powerful winds, plumbing and other amenities that turn an empty parallelepiped into a true place where people can actually live.

In the virtual world, you can make anything fold out to infinity. You can take a shipping container and build a skyscraper out of it. You don't have to think about such trivial things as structural resistance and things you actually need a degree for.

There are projects similar to the one in the video below, but they are more down to earth with the containers folding into smaller, more feasible structures. This principle is mostly used by the military with mobile HQs replacing the old tents being deployed from even smaller containers in a matter of minutes.

These houses, however, they're almost hilarious to watch. When you think they can't get any higher, the next container begins to move its walls and, surprise, you've got yourself a replica of the Louvre. We're obviously exaggerating, but you get the idea.

A little search on the internet is all you need to find similar solutions that can actually be employed. Shipping container houses are slowly becoming a big thing, and rightly so - they're cheap, abundant and quite durable - but we're not talking about the magic folding type here.

It would be great, though, wouldn't it? But think about it. Those hydraulics need to hold the whole weight of the structure plus everything that's on it. As we've said before, you also need to worry about plumbing and electric wiring, which complicate things. The designs showcased here basically multiply the container's usable area by up to six times, and when things sound too good to be true, they usually are. Have a look and tell us if you buy into all this origami living spaces.