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Earth-cooled, shipping container underground CA home for 30K

8 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this documentary2 months2018–2021 score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended as an example of earth-sheltered housing and as part of a channel HN loves for architecture and efficiency.

Kirsten Dirksen profiles Steve Rees, who buried two shipping containers to build an earth-cooled, off-grid 640 sq ft home in Northern California for about $30,000, solar included.

“I can't recommend Kirsten Dirksen's channel enough to people interested in architecture, energy efficiency, tiny homes” (HN, 2019)

1 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 1 citations · Documentaries

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@cwkoss Jun 2019 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home
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I can't recommend Kirsten Dirksen's channel enough to people interested in architecture, energy efficiency, tiny homes, 'green' construction, etc. Literally hundreds of hours of high-quality content - I'm really curious how she is able to find all of these interesting people who are doing such cool things. Channel: [link] Some other favorites: Baubotanik shapes living tree branches into building facades - [link] Boeing retiree finds meaning inventing micro homes & high speed trikes - [link] Extreme transformer home in Hong Kong: Gary Chang's 24 rooms in 1 - [link] Earth-cooled, shipping container underground CA home for 30K - [this video] Yokohama narrow tiny house "breathes" & attracts local nature - [link]
Earth-cooled container home among favorites from a prolific architecture channel.
@jay-anderson Aug 2018 Recommends
on HN thread An office building in Seattle that doesn't have air conditioning
I live in the desert as well. I'd love to have a house with better insulation to spend less on AC. Earth sheltered homes seems like a great way to do that (though there are other problems - e.g. moisture, heavier roof). [this video] , [link] - here's a couple examples (she has visited others as well. Short of that I'd settle for a basement. Someday perhaps.
Example of an earth-cooled underground home.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@gremlinsinc Dec 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Ask HN: Tiny Home for $5k USD?
I think they had someone w/ some engineering skill do it, so it was structurally sound and all... I'm not sure if this is the exact same one I saw, but it's similar enough... [this video]
Similar shipping container home example.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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