Thursday, January 29, 2009

Instant Architecture


Shop in a shipping container, Bemerton Street, North London.

7 Comments:

Blogger PapaBear said...

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...

January 30, 2009 8:00 am  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

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...

January 30, 2009 11:03 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Planning permission??!

January 30, 2009 1:08 pm  
Blogger Boy At The Back said...

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?!

January 30, 2009 10:04 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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.

January 31, 2009 4:30 am  
Blogger John Rowley said...

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.

January 31, 2009 11:11 am  
Blogger jeffconn said...

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. ;-)

January 31, 2009 9:25 pm  

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