Design
Who Are Shipping Containers Really for Now?
In Bristol—a city with a rich maritime history and rising home prices—developers are especially keen on repurposing these utilitarian objects for trendy projects.
In early 2000, architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano went to the United Nations to discuss the possibility of using shipping containers as emergency shelters.
“Right away the response was that there is a stigma connected to the container, to trailers, and to cheap, quick solutions,” Tolla says. “They said that ‘you need to make it happen in the first world before you can propose it seriously.’”