Shipping Containers: making the box cool again

Perhaps you heard the discussion about recycled shipping containers in Austin, Texas this morning on KUT. To follow up on that story we thought we would share some of our favorite local* examples.

Most goods nowadays are shipped to a port near you in shipping containers; and because of the trade deficit thousands of these utilitarian metal boxes are piling up all over the country. 

With the increasing popularity of green design more people are looking to shipping containers for creative alternate (re)uses. Temporary retail stores, emergency housing, simple weekend cabins, and student housing have all been made using this material.  As a matter of fact you might have seen some of its latest incarnations here in town; I am talking of la boite café on South Lamar and sushi box, located in the trailer park on 2nd and Congress. 

There are endless recycling possibilities and obvious benefits to reusing shipping containers. After talking to some of my coworkers, I realized that many of us were in the process of doing just this. The following are some of the ideas we have been researching in our spare time.


Container Bar by Jay Knowles
First project of its kind in Austin. A bar of stacked containers to be located on Rainey Street next to Clive.

Granny Flat on East Austin by FXAV

This container house is a work in progress proposal for the Alley Flat Initiative (link). The Alley Flat Initiative proposes a new sustainable, green affordable housing alternative for Austin. “Alley Flats” are small, detached residential units, accessed from Austin’s extensive network of underutilized alleyways.

The following retail space is neither in Austin or designed by Dick Clark Architecture, that’s ok though, it still looks great and is another fantastic reuse of a shipping container. See the article in Dwell.

This blog was written by Francisco X. Arredondo. Senior Project Manager at Dick Clark Architecture and Shipping Container Recycling Advocate.