Bharathi Research Station (Antarctica)
Resembling a space station from a vintage ‘60s sci-fi film, this incredible creation by Germany’s BOF Architects inhabits another extreme environment, a coastal hillside on the bottom of the globe. Built to house researchers from India, this structure is easily removable to lessen environmental impact.
Photo by BOF Architects
At this moment, there are more than 17 million steel intermodal shipping containers floating or riding across the globe—rectangular, bland engines of global commerce filled with anything and everything you can imagine. While there’s a certain fascination with all these small links in the global supply chain slowly making their way around the world—each identified with its own ISO 6346 number, an odd commercial shorthand—here at Dwell, we’re even more amazed by what happens when the trip ends and reconstruction and reuse begin. We’ve previously collected incredible examples of what intrepid architects and designers have done with these structures; here are ten more recent projects that give thiese 20-foot-long steel rectangles a second life.