Spent hours trawling the internet and finding the same proposed uses for shipping container conversions over again?
While the popularity of options like business or personal storage, playrooms, extra bedrooms, home offices, and home gyms are undeniable, what can you do with a shipping container if you are looking to be a bit more original?
With a hot list fresh off the press, the experts at Gap Containers reveal alternative but much needed uses of shipping containers you could consider!
1. Container villages: modular co-living and temporary communities
No matter the need, shipping containers offer a simple, fast, customisable, and much less expensive solution for temporary housing to traditional bricks and mortar.
With soaring house prices, staggering numbers of people who need social or transitional housing, and an increased focus on sustainability in the built environment, modular and co-living options are becomingly increasingly popular.
Possible uses for container villages:
- Festival housing
- Temporary housing for staff, those experiencing homelessness, or those who need transitional housing, such as those leaving care when they reach 18
- Young adults seeking affordable rental options
- Students
- B&B opportunities for off-grid holidays
With communal elements, like shared kitchens, the option for green tech, like solar panels and stormwater gardens, and easy to integrate expansion as needed, container villages could be the future!
2. Wellness and micro-retreat pods
Using container conversions as hair or beauty salons is a much-touted option for those looking to expand into working for themselves.
However, there are similar industries that are rapidly expanding in interest across the globe – namely wellness and micro-retreats. Offering treatments designed to improve health, such as:
- Meditation spaces
- Saunas and steam rooms
- Cold plunges or ice bath
- Yoga and sound bath studios
Needing important build considerations, including ventilation or humidity control for saunas or steam rooms, these wellness pods require stringent planning but when created, can be used at many existing sites, including urban rooftops, park edges, or existing spa or wellness resorts.
3. Mobile makerspaces and training labs
It’s quite common to find container conversions to be used as workshops for small or cottage businesses.
However, there are growing trends to suggest that mobile labs and makerspaces can allow for investment in alternative areas, including creative prototyping spaces for 3D printing, CNC, or electronics, etc,.
While they would serve a business purpose, it’s also possible to allow access for educational and social needs – which would be beneficial for your local community, including schools, councils, and sponsors.
4. Public-service pods: clinics, libraries, and hygiene hubs
As self-contained units that are infinitely customisable yet mobile enough to be lifted into place, container conversions can fill the space of important outreach and disaster response hubs.
This can include:
- Emergency overnight accommodation
- Hospital and healthcare facilities for hard-to-reach or very rural locations
- Pop-up services, including libraries, WC and shower facilities, vaccination units, or counselling sites
Due to bespoke personalisation and the ease of transportation and deployment, these hubs can be kitted out with everything needed from conceptualisation, including modesty and privacy features, water and electricity hook ups, built-in furniture and storage, and more. So, no matter the needs of the public, there could be a purpose-built space ready to meet the need.
As you might imagine, this could provide essential services across the globe, let alone just the UK.
5. Interactive art and immersive installations
With an ever-expanding interest in experience-based leisure, from escape rooms to immersive theatre and art shows, including the recent Van Gogh experience, you could see why interactive art or experience installations might be another out-of-the-box idea for container conversions.
Infinitely reconfigurable for year-round use and suitable for housing all the latest creative tech, such as:
- Projection mapping instead of canvases
- Fold-out stages
- Sound sculpture booths
- Modular gallery rooms
- AV/VR stations
- Fold-out architecture
No matter the event, flow and visitor experience remain paramount and uncompromised.
Shipping container conversions – limitless uses and appeal
No matter what you have in mind, you’ll struggle to find a more environmentally friendly structure ripe for reconfiguring than an end-of-life intermodal container.
With an in-house design team and conversion specialists, the team at Gap Containers is ideally suited to bringing your vision to life – both on time and on budget.
For design tips, advice, or a full design consultation to bring your idea to life, call 0870 240 9405 or email sales@gapcontainers.co.uk. We’d be glad to assist!
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