This tiny visitors hut at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works yard caught my eye.

The welcome hut reuses 1/2 a shipping container to provide visitors with information about the urban reclamation project Brick Works by Levitt Goodman Architects.

In the 1960s and 70s, the company produced more than 43 million bricks each year. But after business slowed in the 1980s, the yard closed and the 12-acre site fell into shambles. Renamed Evergreen Brick Works, the site is designed to be a community, environmental space where sustainable businesses can establish themselves and grow; artists can work; and locals can come to explore the site, take a walk, ice skate, buy local produce at the farmers’ market, and meander around the 16 buildings being rehabilitated.

Richard Hammond has redesigned an 85 year old Scouts’ camp on Catalina Island, 19 miles off the coast of Southern California. His prototype cabin was constructed from a reclaimed shipping container. where the group is pursuing a sustainable vision for its new campers’ accommodations. Designed by architect Richard Hammond from Gensler in Los Angeles, the prototype cabin is constructed from a reclaimed shipping container and features a recycled local wood deck (from the recently rebuilt pier), natural ventilation, and solar power. The idea of container dwellings that acted more like open tents than completely enclosed cabins.

The Westminster-based construction company that donated the prototype container (20 more cabins will eventually be built) also cut out the top and made window openings. A vaulted roof, made with materials from a boat-cover manufacturer, was constructed, its stretched silicone-coated fiberglass gives the container natural light.

Lee Harrison, the camp’s executive director could have kept the Scouts old barracks, but went with something more modern and environmental since eco outdoor education is something that the organization is based upon. In accordance with the organization’s “leave no trace” philosophy, the Scouts wanted alternative, ecologically sound accommodations suited to the island, a protected wilderness.

via Metropolis

More recycled shipping containers here.

The first public installation of Ashes and Snow at the Arsenale in Venice, which opened in 2002, inspired the aesthetics and architectural concepts for such a museum. The first Nomadic Museum – realised by the architect Shigeru Ban – was constructed of 152 steel cargo containers, stacked 34 feet high and combined with largely recyclable and reusable materials to form the structural elements. In its most recent configuration, the museum occupied 5,300-square meters containing two galleries and three distinct theatres.

Inside, visitors entered the gallery space via a central wooden walkway bordered on either side by stone-filled bays over which the unframed artworks were hung from thin cables and suspension rods installed between the columns. Above, handmade curtains made of one million pressed paper tea bags from Sri Lanka were suspended from the ceiling, floating 40 feet above the floor. The Nomadic Museum opened in New York and has subsequently migrated to Santa Monica, Tokyo and Mexico City. Colbert will continue to collaborate with innovative architects to integrate the most recent advances in sustainable architecture.

Mazier Behrooz Architecture has just completed a 840sf art studio for a client in Amangansett NY. The reuse structure was assembled with two used shipping containers for the footprint. There was a stringent budget of $60,000 for this project.

Resourcefully the architects connected two 9’-6” x 40’ x 8’ shipping containers (cost: $2,500 each, delivered) perched over a 9’ foundation wall/cellar. By cutting 75% of the floor of the containers, the painting studio could take advantage of a high ceiling with a staircase leading to a sitting room  for contemplation above.

via Architecture Daily