Refurbished shipping containers aren’t just useful for clever economical housing anymore. Like London subway car architecure and the Greentainer Design Project, this design concept makes public space more flexible and eco-friendly by re-using discarded material that is easily moved. This tri-level, 11,000-square-foot Puma store, known as Puma City, is made of 24 refurbished shipping containers and is fully dis-mountable so it can be packed up and shipped anywhere. Currently traveling around the world, the store was designed by our favorite shipping container architects LOT-EK and completed in September 2008.
With a painted logo on the outside and complete renovation on the inside, the shipping containers’ past life is well-disguised. While the structure of the shipping containers is evident in the multiple frames created by the knocking down of the shipping containers’ walls, the open and well-lit environment makes the industrial aesthetic seem almost intentional. Additionally, built-in details, such as the two decks located on the upper floors and recessed lighting, gives the store a greater sense a permanence and less like a prefabricated structure that can simply be folded up and moved.
The store is actually not the first example of Puma’s efforts in mass customization in its retail stores. We covered Puma’s store opening in 2006 in New York City’s Union Square. Back then, the athletic brand was able to set the entire store up in less than a week thanks to the fold-out capabilities of container architecture.
+ LOT-EK LOT-EK Video on Inhabitat >
via Treehugger and Jetson Green
Images courtesy of Danny Bright and LOT-EK
8 Responses to “PREFAB FRIDAY: ‘Puma City’ Shipping Container Store”
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Fantastic stuff…. i like the way they’ve used the recently grasped aesthetic of the containers exterior to create a industrial vibe throughout the space…. : )
Puma + Containers = Timeline Please
Thats really cool, but for me its purely from an environmental standpaint. Puma just never did it for me…
Brilliant! I wish our gov’t would look at these!
Our govt, does use these, but not at the extent they good. when i was stationed in Kosovo with the Army, we used renovated shipping containers as temporary housing. Although not pretty, they had every necessity (heat, AC, electrical, plumming.)
Un-realistic: LOT-EK, like Adam Kalkin and Jure Kotnik and have great concept designs but not usable or realistic architecture. Virtually any structural engineer who works with shipping containers knows the strength is only on the corners and not in the middle. To overlap or crisscross containers can be done for art or concepts, but in reality the cost of added steel supports, engineering fees and re-certification to make them legal and pass building inspections is entirely unrealistic and unaffordable. How about showing the public realistic container architecture. This is very dangerous to promote….
Nice, but Platoon in Berlin have been doing this for years as office/art/party environment.
http://blog.platoon.org/home
Seems that fashion Labels like Container Building.
found one of Hilfiger denim at an architecture forum.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=145254&page=90
nice stuff. Club build out of containers.
http://twotimestwentyfeet.com/p/hilfiger_w2011