Sheffield based studio CODA Architects have stacked a block of disused shipping containers in the city, offering units that act as “launch pads” for new start-ups.
Branded Krynkl, the structure is squeezed onto a tight plot of land adjacent to the city’s inner ring road and houses a restaurant, a gym, and an art gallery, as well as smaller units aimed at independent businesses.
Sixteen 40-foot containers arranged in four-by-four formation, accommodate larger spaces and form a grid-like principle elevation.
A block of half-size containers stacked behind enclose smaller units, which David Cross, architect and director of the firm described as “platform spaces for new start-ups and young businesses.”
The units are accessed via a central circulation core sandwiched between the two accommodation blocks, and a spiral stair clad with translucent polycarbonate leads to an open-air rooftop bar.
Internally, untreated oriented strand board (OSB) is used to clad the rippled container metal, and exposed ducting and pipework provides the “basic spaces” with an industrial feel.
Profiled sheet metal accessorises bars and furniture, mirroring the building’s rippled metal facades.
At ground floor level, an entrance tunnel leads guests from the street to the building’s core, and segments of container wall have been chopped away, opening up the modules into a more flexible restaurant space.
Cross – also an executive of Crossbow, the investment company behind the scheme – aims to provide a mentor-like role to the building’s tenants. “With Krynkl we’re aiming for more than just a landlord/tenant relationship,”
“We offer simple spaces to new businesses, and if they succeed they can go on to bigger and better things. However if they don’t, that’s okay too because they haven’t been locked in to expensive contracts – they can try something else.”
The container development is part of the major regeneration currently underway in the ex-industrial Kelham Island quarter, where other projects include the Little Kelham scheme – a community of black townhouses with a geometric roofscape designed by Bauman Lyons.
Shipping container architecture has grown in popularity in recent years, with successful mixed-use schemes including Boxpark in London and Container City in Las Vegas giving traction to the trend.
Cross admitted that he was initially fooled into initially thinking the project would be a simple one – “We perhaps naively thought this would be just bolting a few containers together.”
Despite describing the project as “the most difficult venture of [his] career so far”, the architect and entrepreneur stressed that he would be involved with container construction again in the near future.
Photography by Kyle Emmerson.