Corrugated steel shipping containers are increasingly being salvaged for new uses in architecture, such as private homes, hotels, sheds, and coffee shops.
One of the newest reincarnations of these industrial “structures” is right here in New York City- in Downtown Brooklyn, to be exact. Dekalb Market (a joint venture between Urban Space and Youngwoo & Associates) opened at the end of July and was originally constructed of twenty-two recycled shipping containers. Due to the immense popularity of the market, thirty new containers were just added, increasing the number of shipping containers to over fifty! The 160-square-foot containers house food vendors and artisans’ shops and are stacked and sliced open in a myriad of combinations.
Urban Space, a “developer and manager of specialty retail markets in the United States and Great Britain” is not new to the idea of using salvaged shipping containers to create contemporary spaces- the firm has been involved in over twenty container projects in Great Britain.
Although individual shipping containers may not typically be considered “architecture,” does their combination and adaptation make them architecture?
Therefore, could the re-use of shipping containers be considered preservation as well?