Swiss architecture company Bureau A has designed Steelhenge: a recreation of the prehistoric English stone circle created from 50 shipping containers.
For the very first edition of the biennale for independent art spaces in Geneva, Massive, local company Bureau A was commissioned to create an open air venue that would function as a space for attendees to congregate.
Relevant story: 99c offices by Inhouse Brand Architects attribute a waiting room inside a shipping container
Constructed making use of 50 blue shipping containers, the circular arrangement of Steelhenge is based on the concentric layout of Neolithic monument Stonehenge.
“We like to work with references, displacement or even direct estimates,” Bureau A’s Leopold Banchini informed Dezeen.
“In this case, the ruins of Stonehenge and the pagan rituals that it evokes appeared like an fascinating landscape relating to the disappearing option and squat culture in Geneva.”
The steel containers were placed side by side to recreate the outer circle of monoliths. To echo the taller structures of the Wiltshire monument, pairs of containers have been stood on finish to help horizontally-placed units.
Connected story: Angled shipping container houses a staircase for Israeli port workplace by Potash Architects
“The biennale was only organised for a long weekend,” Banchini additional. “With a restricted price range, we had to go for a quick and simply reusable material: the container.”
Other people have also taken benefit of shipping containers’ ease of use. Pedro Barata e Arquitetos Associados used them to build a 12-metre-tall periscope in Brazil, and CRG Architects proposed replacing slum housing with skyscrapers created from stacks of the containers.
“Containers are a symbol at the new globalised economy it was also exciting to replace the stones of the authentic monument by these steel box,” stated Banchini.
The whole structure was constructed in a day using a crane, with concrete blocks used to add weight to every container, and reinforce their stability.
Gallery participants in the biennale, which ran from 26 to 28 June 2015, were then given the opportunity to customise the interior of every single of the containers.
Much more layout with shipping containers is collected together on Dezeen’s dedicated Pinterest board.
Photography is by Dylan Perrenoud.
