Explore innovative commercial spaces built with shipping containers—flexible, modular, and made for modern business. From pop-up cafés and retail hubs to office buildings and workspaces, these projects show how container architecture can be sustainable, cost-effective, and eye-catching.
Whether you’re planning a mobile bar, startup office, or full-scale retail space, container-based commercial design offers unmatched speed and versatility—ideal for urban sites, remote locations, and everything in between.
Looking for inspiration for your own commercial container build? Browse these real-world examples and discover how businesses are turning cargo containers into bold, functional spaces.
Called the View Tube, this stunning cafe is made out of lime green recycled shipping containers. Perched on a hill overlooking the site of the London 2012 Olympics, it is a cafe, a look-out and a gallery space.Read More »A Shipping Container Cafe “View Tube” on the London Olympic Site
Travelodge, the budget hotel company, completed their first recycled hotel made out of shipping containers in August 2008. The 86 containers used in the Uxbridge hotel were prepared in China with plasterboard walls, electrics and bathrooms already in place before being shipped to the UK, stacked and assembled like lego pieces. The containers are simply bolted together and once installed at the site, windows are fitted, the modules are decorated and furnished, and then the exterior of the building is cladded.Read More »The Travelodge Shipping Container Hotel – Uxbridge, UK
This hip, colorfully painted shipping container city recently sprung up just outside of Mexico city. Created by a small community of businesses, the project features restaurants, gallery space, bars, funky stores and even living spaces constructed completely out of recycled shipping containers.Read More »Container City – Cholula Mexico
Contertainer, designed by dpavilion architects of Surabaya – Indonesia, is an amalgam of two words: container and entertainer. From its outer look, at a glance one can see an architectural form made of several brightly painted containers—red, yellow, blue and light green—in attractive position and composition, thus forming a contertainer.Read More »Contertainer : Designed by DPavilion Architects
A growing US charity event company, Pallotta TeamWorks, approached Clive Wilkinson Architects with a challenging proposition: to create an inspiring new headquarters for them in a raw warehouse with a shoestring budget. After a preliminary budget analysis, it emerged that they had insufficient funds to even air-condition the space.Read More »Pallotta Teamworks Shipping Container Headquarters
Situated on former wasteland, the new marketing suite was designed to fit within a larger community that is being developed along 2 kilometres of Thames waterfront in Barking and Dagenham. Commissioned by Barking Riverside, the project has been designed with the environment in mind. Wind turbines, solar panels, biomass heater and re used structure ensure the projects very low carbon footprint and sustainable high performance during its life cycle.Read More »The Barking Riverside Marketing Suite Made From Shipping Containers
Nobody does shipping container architecture like Lot-ek, one of the originals. They designed a demountable retail space for Puma, with “with large double heights as well as with 4-container-wide open spaces to challenge the modular box-quality of the container inner space; offices, press area and storage occupy the second level and a bar, lounge and event space with a large open terrace is at the top.Read More »The Puma City Retail Shipping Container
The bright red office pods are arrayed across the floor of a giant warehouse in an industrial section of Santa Ana, complete with round porthole windows, comfortable office furniture, plants, even bathrooms and sinks. They’re individually climate controlled, vastly cheaper than a more traditional setup. The best part: they’re made from old shipping containers – the same blocky, bus-sized metal boxes you might see stacked at the Port of Long Beach.Read More »The Ultimate In Office Recycling – Shipping Container Offices
Earth Science Australia‘s team built the rainforest research center using two 6m (20′) containers placed 3m (10′) apart. Leaving a space between the containers allows for a semi-enclosed area for storage, hanging out or doing research. There is a total of 30sqm of dry sleeping area, 15sqm of mostly dry cooking area and 45sqm of covered outdoor area. Believe it or not, the entire project, including the containers, trucking the containers some 500km, screening in the cargo doors, steel, cement, sand and gravel, nuts, bolts, carports, C-section, screens, timber, decking oil and painting cost only $16,000 AUS.Read More »A Shipping Container Rainforest Research Center in the Tropics
A striking example of shipping container architecture, Platoon Kunsthalle serves as an exciting and inspiring new exhibit hall and art center in Seoul, Korea. Built from standard shipping containers by Graft Lab Architects, the Kunsthalle, provides a gorgeous modern space where new ideas thrive and creativity is let loose. The building opened last April and houses art studio space, exhibit areas, a restaurant and bar, as well as lots of open space to gather.Read More »Platoon Kunsthalle: Seoul’s Modern Shipping Container Art Center
In a remarkable example of adaptive reuse, over 7,000 shipping containers have been stacked together to create the thriving marketplace in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The kilometer-long Dordoy Bazaar is considered one of the Asia’s greatest public market places, and it is built out of thousands of shipping containers double-stacked under large shade structures.
The bazaar first began back in 1992 and it has since grown into an enormous marketplace containing streets, plazas, restaurants, stores and offices. The market stretches about a kilometer long and is located on the north-eastern outskirts of Bishkek. Technically, the market is composed of several (about 9) different markets, but there are no fences or demarcations to indicate the different areas, each of which specializes in various types of consumer goods.Read More »7,000 Shipping Containers Used to Create Bazaar in Kyrgyzstan
In 2009, Inhabitat brought exciting news of a beautiful new shipping container art center opening up in Seoul, and we’ve just discovered that it has a sister structure in Gwangju that rivals both its cool factor and creative contribution to the Korean community. Called Platoon Kunsthalle Gwangju, the newer building is made up of dark grey and orange cargo containers, and houses emerging art and subculture exhibitions as well as an event hall and bar. Click through our gallery to peek inside this intriguing space.Read More »Platoon Kunsthalle GwangJu Shipping Container Art Center Stacks Up in Korea