Shipping Container Homes & Buildings: Sugoroku Office - Shipping Container Architecture Studio, Japan

Sugoroku Office - Shipping Container Architecture Studio, Japan

Section

Mobile frame

About Daiken-Met Architects

Architects	Daiken-Met Architects
Project	Sugoroku Office
Containers	7
Area	111 m²
Building footprint area	49 m²
Year	2011
Construction	Nakamura Construction Company
Location	Gifu, Japan
Photographs	Shinkenchiku-sha

The Japanese office Daiken-Met Architects has recently built the Sugoroku Office, its architecture studio in Gifu, Japan. A mobile frame, compatible with stacked containers, forms the work areas and living spaces on the top floor.

This shipping container office represents a temporary structure model that does not require foundations below street level. The structural steel frame can be easily mounted and serves to reduce loads on the shells of the shipping containers.

The land is leased and at the end of the lease, the structure can be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. The storage systems were built with reused plywood or recycled packaging strips from other buildings under construction.

Description from Inhabitat

Daiken-Met Architects: “In the local city, we are facing various problems such as decreasing population, increasing vacant land, on the other hand it is difficult to make a rental contract for small buildings.” Because of this, they decided to build their own office and obtained a short-term rental contract for a small parcel of land where they could set up their temporary office. As part of their lease agreement, they proposed an architectural design and agreed to remove and reconstruct it every few years.

The Sugoroku Office is built from seven stacked shipping containers on three levels with two spaces left open for balconies. A mobile steel frame serves as the foundation – it provides support for the containers while reducing the structural load placed on them. Circulation routes are installed on the outside of the containers to provide access all the way up to the 3rd floor. The frame and containers can easily be dismantled, removed and rebuilt whenever necessary. The interiors of the containers are finished with used plywood or packing bands from a construction site.