Plan Magazine - Container Graveyard

3 September 10

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Container Graveyard
Danish architects MAPT has developed a sustainable container-pavilion in Copenhagen

Image: MAPT3

MAPT has based its approach on the cradle-to-cradle principle – take a surplus product like an old, empty shipping container and give it some value again. In this way you have a sustainable solution which can quickly be made exclusive in spite of the materials’ original use.
The pavilion’s containers can easily be reconverted to their life as a shipping container; this flexibility ensures that they can be split up and used separately. In the future, it will be possible to build both houses and second homes where the principle of sustainability is incorporated from beginning to end. After the exhibition for example, the City of Copenhagen will use two of the containers for cultural events or as venues for local meetings.

Image: MAPT1

MAPT also insists that living in a container can mean any number of opportunities for creating your own unique house. “You decide yourself what surfaces you want on the inside. Do you want to see the untreated steel of the container while the floor is covered with boards? There is a whole range of exciting, new and sustainable materials to choose from.” Although they concede that you might need a good winter coat as an uninsulated container could get chilly.

Image: MAPT2

Materials used include surplus products from the wood and wind turbine industries. The pavilion’s rough finish promotes the idea that recycling can be beautiful if the materials are put together right. It also hints at a new aesthetic, where the story and the content are important. Where do the materials come from, who has produced them and what are they made of?

Inspiration behind the project
“Containers are a good example of overproduction which can be used for many other purposes than freight. Throughout the world, for example in the USA, you will come across huge, man-made mountains of containers. It is frequently uneconomic to ship containers back again to where they came from, so they are simply left to pile up.
The containers in the pavilion also tell the story of a temporary society, where needs and economies, lifestyles and population density are in a constant state of flux. Our cities and our architecture must be geared to this. The pavilion encapsulates the essence of this mentality, demonstrating on a small scale the flexibility inherent in a temporary concept with an inbuilt life cycle. The pavilion’s building blocks can be used in innumerable configurations, according to the needs and demands put upon them.
This is not recycling; it is upcycling.”
MAPT Architects

Image: MAPT4