Shipping Container Apartments Coming to Downtown Phoenix

By Christine Walsh

The architecture firm StarkJames LLC has designed an apartment complex made from recycled shipping containers, which is currently being built in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The primary reason behind this project was providing affordable and sustainable housing near the city’s busy downtown area.

The complex is called Containers on Grand and is located at 12th Avenue and Grand Avenue, in Phoenix. A total of 16 decommissioned shipping containers will be used to build eight apartment units. Each of the apartments will be made of 2 recycled shipping containers, yielding 740 square feet per apartment.

The architects will keep the floor plan open and modern, while at the same time celebrating the fact that shipping containers were used to build these homes. The apartments will all be one-bedroom units. A kitchen island will be located in the middle of each apartment, with a large living area on one side of it and the bedroom and bathroom on the other. To achieve adequate space, one of the longer sides of each container will be cut away and two containers will then be welded together to form a single apartment.

The living area will open out into the central courtyard in the center of the complex via double French windows. These large windows will also allow plenty of natural daylight to enter the home, making it appear more spacious and open. The apartments will also offer plenty of storage along one side of the central corridor.

According to the architects the Containers on Grand complex will be finished and open by the end of spring. They also say, that they already have a lot of interest from he young professionals and students at Arizona State University’s downtown campus. They are expecting to rent the apartments for $950-$1000 a month.

Taco Bell Builds a Restaurant out of Shipping Containers

By Christine Walsh

The fast food company Taco Bell has unveiled a new restaurant at this year’s SXSW in Austin, TX. What sets this one apart is the fact that it was constructed entirely out of shipping containers. It seems more and more business are starting to adopt this new architecture trend, which given the surplus of shipping containers piling up in US ports each month truly is great news!

In the case of Taco Bell, we can perhaps expect more of these types of cargotecture restaurants, since they’re planning to open 2,000 new locations in the US by 2022, which means they are looking to cut costs wherever they can.

The new shipping container Taco Bell only has about half the footprint of a traditional Taco Bell, and the one in Austin was built in just three days, with most of the pre-prep done off site, of course. They have also opted to leave the containers in the original industrial condition, and even though they have been repainted, the company chose a color very similar to the original finish.

They also did not alter the original shapes of the containers very much, apart from cutting out the openings for doors, windows and ventilation. The main shipping container is the one where food is ordered and picked up, and this container also houses one entire food prep line. If an additional food prep line is needed, such as in areas of higher traffic, a second shipping container could easily be attached to the structure to provide it. To fight the feeling of claustrophobia felt by the workers in the back of the container, they added a window to the food prep area, so the backs of the employees as they prepare food is visible to the customers ordering the food.

They placed the storage and operations area into a second container, which also houses the manager’s office. The third container rests atop the bottom two and houses all the necessary cooling equipment. It would appear they also cut one container in half, and then welded the two parts to the main structure. One of these contains the bathrooms and the other the freezer.

However, this restaurant has no indoor space for the customers to sit. There is an outdoor eating area equipped with tables built from refinished wood pallets and giant wire spools laid on their sides, which is also a nice way to repurpose these materials.