Four bright blue shipping containers formerly used to transport Absolut vodka have become ‘Creative Space,’ a versatile series of workspaces at the company’s headquarters in Åhus, Sweden. Recent architectural grads Astrid Skog and Charlotte Stuveback stacked the crates and transformed them into working environments supporting a wide range of creative processes. The structure was used for Absolut’s ‘Hackathon,’ a three-day event exploring ways to creatively repurpose materials like glass vodka bottles and otherwise reduce the company’s environmental footprint.
The shipping container workspaces consist of four distinct areas: the bar, the distillery, the workshop and the bottlery. The bar offers a place to relax, drink coffee, read magazines and talk to fellow designers. The distillery is a brainstorming space, and the bottlery encourages experimentation with ideas in early phases. Finally, the workshop is where these ideas are made into real products and concepts. One of the coolest projects that came out of Hackathon is a DIY sound system set into Absolut bottles and hung from the ceiling.
The spaces are full of their own impressive hacks, including a bunch of suspended vodka bottle lights and reuse of cardboard bottle sleeves as horizontal organizers within wall shelves. There are slide-out work surfaces with sawhorse-style legs and rolling crates full of tools tucked under tables. Now that the event is over, Absolut plans to ship the Creative Space crates to a new location so they can be used for innovation again.
