Earlier this year, when the Downey Conservancy announced their efforts to #SaveTacoBell, we took the opportunity to look at how the beloved chain restaurant has reinvented itself over the years. SxSW sees the latest incarnation of their restaurant: Taco Bell is jumping on the shipping-container building trend.
Image via Fast Company
Shipping containers have long been a choice for trendy architecture. Not so much for their function — they’re actually somewhat difficult to build with — but for their shabby aesthetic, which screams post-industrial environmentalism. The modular building system doesn’t necessarily mimic the logic of stacking cargo containers in on a ship, but it can. Or, inversely, if designing a building in an industrial port city, you can use movable louvers to mimic the look of a stack of containers.
Here are some shipping container buildings that do Taco Bell one better:
© Sebastián Irarrázaval
Caterpillar House by Sebastián Irarrázaval, Santiago, Chile
Five disused containers make up this violently cantilevered house. The shipping container unit has been stripped away through material application that joins multiple part of the house, but the width and height can be read as clearly cargo.
© AnLstudio
Oceanscope by AnLstudio. Incheon City, Korea
The crates are chopped up in this beach viewing platform, and horizontal windows on diagonal boxes play visual tricks on your mind.
© dpavilion architects
Amin Shipping Container Library by dpavilion architects, Batu, Indonesia
Recalling Will Alsop’s Sharp Center for Design in Toronto, this library deploys eight recycled containers supported by angled columns, in a colorful jumble of glass and container.
© NL Architects
Barneveld Noord by NL Architects, Utrecht, Netherlands
A container is flipped on its side, creating a tower that would make Robert Venturi proud. This also subverts the context of the crate as a module of stacking, and thus a module of construction.
© LOT-EK
APAP Open School by LOT-EK, Anyang, KR
Super-graphics and diagonally oriented cargo boxes make this yellow school really stand out.
Autobox by Guilherme Torres, Londrina, Brazil
Containers are painted red for this pop-up shop for an Asian automaker. The store is meant to be relocated by disassembling it.
© Ædifica architecture + design + urban planning
Snackbox Times Square by Aedifica architecture + design, New York, NY
A single crate in the middle of Times Square is divided into three sections, where food is served through folding windows.