Recognizable in their original form, twelve shipping containers form a two-story recreational pavilion for the Chinese city of Shanxi, stacked and set at an angle with the top units cantilevered over the bottom ones. People’s Architecture Office (PAO) capped the ends of each container in glass and removed sections of the walls, floors and ceilings to create a surprisingly bright and open interior that carries natural daylight into every corner.

The containers are staggered, which not only creates a terrace on the open ceilings of the lower red crates, but also produces a dynamic floor plan with lots of nooks and crannies for seating overlooking the surrounding city. This clever arrangement effectively multiplies the space without having to add additional containers, and each container acts like a viewfinder stretching out toward the skyline.

Exterior stairs offer easy access to both rooftop terrace levels, providing residents with even more views. Perpendicularly set on top of the red containers, the yellow cantilevered units cast shadows on the ground to create sheltered spaces outside. Inside, there’s plenty of room to congregate, making it a convenient meeting space for people who live in the adjacent housing developments.

Since the containers have barely been modified, it would also be a breeze to pack the whole thing up and transport it to a new location when necessary, or replace individual containers if they get damaged. While other architectural projects reclaiming used shipping containers often take pains to disguise them (and at least insulate the interiors, which seems like a budget-friendly but potentially uncomfortable oversight in this case), this one stands as a highly visible example of affordable alternative architecture making use of widely available portable materials.

While many intermodal freight crate transformations turn steel boxes into comfortable spaces, this project goes a step further both by taking maximum advantage of its material origins while still making the aesthetic result more than the sum of its parts.

Repurposed as an office by and for architect Patrick Bradley, this 45-foot cargo container (re)creation makes use of existing openings on either end and requires as few cuts in the surface of the sides as possible (an energy- and cost-efficient approach). Each of these openings is in turn taken advantage of, in one case to create an entry sequence and, at the other end, to facilitate a lovely little balcony extension.

Further, the design leverages the strength of the container to cantilever it out over a steep-sloping cliff already on the site, saving money, time and energy landscaping the lot. Simple modular cladding manages to transform the exterior appearance with ease as well.

In the end, there is little about the project that screams ‘shipping container’ at first glance, yet the overall shape and structural advantages of that core element are maintained and utilized throughout – a brilliant blend of old and new.