Making a café out of shipping containers?

Yes, totally possible and already done! Rahul Jain, an architect from Delhi started this Infinity Café in the ITS Dental College campus.

An airel view will show how the café looks like the “infinity” sign and its symbolic – the infinite possibilities of using shipping containers and sustainable construction materials.

The shipping containers were sourced from a warehouse in Dadri. There are nine shipping containers of 40ft X 9.5ft X 8ft, bought at a price of  Rs 2.5 lakh each. They weighed about 3,750 kg and could endure a weight of about 27,600 kg each!

The roof is built out of cement fiber boards made from recycled materials like cellulose fibres, mixed with a bit of cement and sand. Rock wool instead of Glass wool fibres was used for insulating the building.

One shipping container serves as the kitchen, while two are used for a sitting lounge, which can be used to host events within the campus. One of the shipping containers has been transformed to build a staircase right at the entrance.

Though locked down for now due to Covid, the café does very well under normal circumstances and not surprisingly, Jain has got orders from many others around India who want him to use shipping containers to make more cafes.

Just goes on to show how man can channelize his creativity and use it for the benefit of the people while causing minimal harm to the environment.