Contain yourself 15 January, 2004
I remember being outraged when British Rail pulled down the Listed wooden station in Wolverton and replaced it with a converted freight container. A charmless, ugly, squat little shed, a world away from the Victorian splendour and craft of its predecessor. So I would never have thought that freight containers could be used creatively for anything useful (BR just wanted to cut costs). But that’s exactly what British architects Urban Space Management are doing. Their Container City is a brilliant use of old freight containers. They’re cheap; can be put on-site quickly; and (unlike the new Wolverton station) even look attractive (in a kind of freight containerish way). Now this could be one approach to providing low cost affordable housing, but would people want to live in converted freight containers?