Consider: The humble shipping container. An essential component of global trade, the 20- and 40-foot-long steel rectangular boxes litter our landscape, rumbling by on the back of 18-wheelers, hurtling up and down the state in mile-long railroad chains, and squeezing under the Golden Gate Bridge, piled on hulking cargo ships heading in and out of the Port of Oakland.
But in the eyes of Italian designers Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, these ubiquitous containers are objects of beauty ripe for repurposing as chic, environmentally friendly shelter. New York filmmaker Thomas Piper's new documentary, "We Start With the Things We Find," turns the Naples-born Columbia University professors into delightful company as he traces the evolution of their design firm Lot-Ek (pronounced low-tech).
