Instant Architecture
Shop in a shipping container, Bemerton Street, North London.
posted by Paul McAuley at 12:46 pm
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Shop in a shipping container, Bemerton Street, North London.
About Me
- Name: Paul McAuley
- Location: London, United Kingdom
I'm the author of more than twenty books, including novels, short story collections and a film monograph. My latest novel is Beyond the Burn Line. For reprint, translation and media requests, please contact Oliver Cheetham at the Mic Cheetham Agency.
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7 Comments:
All I can say is that if you are ready to serve a need, then can you be all wrong? If you are the one to give me my first coffee and morning news, can you be all bad? Just saying...
I'm all for it - too many local shops have been converted into flats, in London. This is a very smart way to serve a need at low cost, and if local trade falls you can always move the whole thing elsewhere. I expect to see a lot more of this...
Planning permission??!
I saw this post on another site, which happened to be American. My first thought was that it must have been in downtown New Orleans or somewhere. London?!
I suspect there are too many rules here in the USA for this to work, but I applaud the concept and would like to see more of this. I love the idea of a business that can simply be moved to a new location at the end of a lease.
Taking the concept further: imagine a compact shopping center of stacked standardized shipping container shops are arranged on some sort of rack system where shops are simply lifted in or out of of the grid as needed. Kinda like some sort of mall without walls.
To Paul McAuley's comment, you could move similar types of residential (condo) containers in or out of the same grid as economic conditions of the region shift.
Sorry, mostly through a bottle of wine - not exactly thinking clearly. Still like the topic concept, though.
Very interesting. I know that there are many shipping containers converted into small studio spaces somewhere under the Westway because a friend was using one. Something made him get away from that whole thing though so it's possible that isn't happening anymore.
There is also a two-storey house made of one shipping container above another somewhere around London bridge (I'm sorry I forget where but if I go past it again I'll photograph it for you).
The idea of using these things as a place to live doesn't appeal to me at all but your find in Islington there makes good sense. It's a shame he doesn't paint it a more fun colour though, it's so drab.
Thanks for photographing this, I do love the oddities of London.
Shipping container stores were all over the US military bases in the Mid-East. They were the best places to buy tobacco, cheap electronics and bootleg DVDs. ;-)
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