Airbnb

The River Forest Lookout puts shipping container-based architecture on a pedestal – literally. It takes the form of a fire lookout tower-style design that consists of two containers raised 60 ft above the forest floor in rural Georgia.

If you've ever wanted to stay in a hovel that's home to an antisocial green ogre – and, let's face it, who hasn't? – now might finally be your chance. Airbnb has recreated the swampy home from the Shrek movies in the Scottish Highlands.

Airbnb regularly offers the chance to stay in one-of-a-kind places, and has now teamed up with Palais Garnier, the Paris opera house which inspired the Phantom of the Opera novel, to offer a night of luxury and a rare look behind the scenes.

The results are in for Airbnb's OMG! Fund competition and the home ideas are just as wild as expected. From a house shaped like a flowerpot to another that looks like a cereal box, 100 off-the-wall designs are now getting the chance to be built.

Airbnb isn't exactly lacking in unusual home designs, however the online property rental marketplace has launched a new competition soliciting the most oddball ideas for vacation homes, some of which it will then fund to build.

In an effort to create some buzz for the recent World Bee Day, an Italian beekeeper has built a "Air bee and bee" tiny house-style dwelling. Installed in an olive garden, the basic-but-novel shelter has a beehive integrated into its ceiling.

Twente Additive Manufacturing has designed what it calls the first 3D-printed home in Canada. Named the Fibonacci House, the concrete tiny house is inspired by the Fibonacci number sequence, and is available for rent on Airbnb.

If your idea for the perfect vacation is to spend a week in a potato or a shoe, then you may be a good fit for a new competition by Airbnb. It's spending US$1 million to fund the wildest new home ideas from around the globe.

We cover all kinds of houses, shelters, and cabins here at New Atlas but this is the first time we've reported on a dwelling that looks like a potato.

Airbnb likes to drum up publicity with competitions offering off-the-wall (or even on-the-wall) experiences, like a night spent in BIG's Lego House, for example. Its latest competition offers one winner and their guest a night in Paris' famous Musée du Louvre, complete with private tour.

This train car is over 70 years old and has an interesting history that includes it being used during World War II and the Cold War. Now installed on some rural land in Maryville, Tennessee, it has been painstakingly renovated into a guest house and is available to rent on Airbnb.

Dressmaker and designer Kristie Wolfe previously built a Hawaiian treehouse on a shoestring budget, as well as a hobbit house in Washington State. Her latest project is a fire lookout tower dating back to the 1950s, which she has renovated into an Airbnb rental.