Skip to content
Kesera Technologies

Kesera division · Sustainable building

SeraHome

From discarded to lived in.

Sera Home builds sustainable homes through recycling, reuse and upcycling. Shipping containers become homes, gyms and offices; empty oil drums become chairs, tables and handwashing stations; discarded and locally available materials become buildings, furniture and facilities that are practical, attractive and responsible.

Enquire about a buildSee real examples
A yellow shipping container converted into a market stall with a wooden roof and tables in frontExample
A single rusted, burnt-out oil drum standing in a bare fieldExample
A jerrycan with a tap on a concrete ledge above a basin made from a cut-down steel drumExample

Examples of reuse (not Sera Home projects). Credits in the gallery below.

01Focus areas

Focus areas

  • 01Shipping-container homes
  • 02Container gyms, offices and shops
  • 03Oil-drum chairs and tables
  • 04Chair-and-table sets
  • 05Handwashing stations
  • 06Recycled-material construction
  • 07Upcycled furniture and products
  • 08Smart home systems

02Recycling · reuse · upcycling

How wastebecomes a home

Every Sera Home build starts with something that was going to be thrown away. Choose a material to see how it moves from discarded, through transformation, to a finished space or product.

Before

Two weathered shipping containers stacked and abandoned at the edge of a fieldExample
Abandoned shipping containers: the starting point.Essex, England · Photo: Acabashi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

Sera Home / Shipping container

40 ft · 12.2 m · steel

After

A yellow shipping container converted into a market stall with a wooden roof and tables in frontExample
A shipping container reused as a market shop, shaded with a timber roof.Hlasaamè market, Lalo, Benin · Photo: Roger Soro · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
Four storeys of stacked shipping containers forming student apartments with large windowsExample
Shipping containers stacked four storeys high as student apartments.Le Havre, France · Photo: Philippe Alès · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
  1. 01Source and inspect a sound container
  2. 02Cut and frame doors, windows and vents
  3. 03Insulate and line against the heat
  4. 04Fit out power, water, lighting and solar
  5. 05Place on foundations and connect

Becomes

  • Homes
  • Gyms
  • Offices
  • Shops
  • Studios
  • Site offices

03Real-world examples

What wastebecomes

Containers, drums, tyres and bottles are already building homes, shops, offices and facilities around the world. These photographs show what is possible, and the standard Sera Home builds to.

  • Four storeys of stacked shipping containers forming student apartments with large windowsExample
    Shipping containers stacked four storeys high as student apartments.Le Havre, France · Photo: Philippe Alès · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
  • A yellow shipping container converted into a market stall with a wooden roof and tables in frontExample
    A shipping container reused as a market shop, shaded with a timber roof.Hlasaamè market, Lalo, Benin · Photo: Roger Soro · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
  • A jerrycan with a tap on a concrete ledge above a basin made from a cut-down steel drumExample
    A jerrycan tap above a cut-down steel drum used as the basin.Arba Minch, Ethiopia · Photo: SuSanA Secretariat · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • A row of old shipping containers fitted with windows and doors as homes beside a street in HavanaExample
    Old sea containers turned into homes, with windows cut into the steel walls.Havana, Cuba · Photo: Paul Keller · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • Two lounge chairs and a small round table made from the curved staves of old barrels, on a wooden deckExample
    A chair-and-table set made from reclaimed barrel staves.Photo: star5112 · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source
  • The glazed front of Earthship Brighton, a building with earth-filled tyre walls and solar panelsExample
    Earthship Brighton: walls of earth-filled tyres, glazed to the sun.Brighton, England · Photo: Dominic Alves · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • A two-storey black container building with a round window and an external steel staircaseExample
    A two-storey container building with an outside stair and a porthole window.Groningen, Netherlands · Photo: Wutsje · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
  • A heap of empty blue and green steel drums dumped togetherExample
    Empty drums piled up as waste.Sweden · Photo: Håkan Dahlström · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • A black water tank on a round brick plinth with a tap, filled from a roof gutter, beside a toilet blockExample
    A handwashing station: a tank on a brick plinth, filled by hand or from the roof gutter.Chwele, Bungoma, Kenya · Photo: SuSanA Secretariat (C. Rieck) · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • A window opened into a rendered wall reveals the car tyres, glass bottles and cans built inside itExample
    Inside the wall: car tyres, glass bottles and cans as building material.Brighton, England · Photo: Andy Li · CC0 · Source
  • A multi-storey office building made of grey and yellow shipping containers with glazed endsExample
    Offices built from shipping containers, glazed at the ends for daylight.Dundee, Scotland · Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
  • A temporary house and fence built from walls of stacked plastic bottles after the tsunamiExample
    After the tsunami, families built homes from whatever was at hand, including plastic bottles.Aceh, Indonesia · Photo: USAID Indonesia · Public domain · Source
  • A small cabin made from two shipping containers under a raised roof, set in a green gardenExample
    Two containers under one raised roof: a small cabin in a garden.United States · Photo: ROLU (rosenlof/lucas) · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • Rows of weathered red, blue and grey oil drums at a scrap-metal yardExample
    Drums left over from vehicle lubricant, waiting at a scrap yard.Seattle, United States · Photo: Joe Mabel · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
  • A single rusted, burnt-out oil drum standing in a bare fieldExample
    A discarded oil drum: the raw material.Photo: rileyroxx · CC BY 2.0 · Source
  • Two weathered shipping containers stacked and abandoned at the edge of a fieldExample
    Abandoned shipping containers: the starting point.Essex, England · Photo: Acabashi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

Photos marked “Example” show reuse by other builders and communities around the world, credited to their photographers under open licences. They illustrate the materials and methods Sera Home works with; they are not Sera Home projects.

04Smart living inside

Reclaimed outside. Intelligent inside.

A reused shell can still be a modern home. Sera Home fits solar power, storage, lighting, security and automation, so a container home runs on its own energy and looks after itself.

Sera Home / Smart livingConcept sectionSolarLivingKitchenBedroomStudyLockBatteryHubScene · MorningBlinds open · geyser on

03Approach

How Sera Home works

  1. 01

    Recover

    Containers, drums, tyres, bottles, timber and scrap, collected locally before they become waste.

  2. 02

    Clean and assess

    Every piece is cleaned, checked for soundness and kept only if it is safe to reuse.

  3. 03

    Transform

    Cut, welded, insulated, sanded and sealed into something new.

  4. 04

    Fit out and finish

    Power, water, solar, smart controls and finishes, so it works as well as it looks.

06Projects

What Sera Home is building

Next division

Sera Assistants