COP15 Pavilion Made from Shipping Containers

Amidst all the climate change conversation in Copenhagen during the COP15 conference, one building stood out as great green design. Danish architects MAPT built their COP15 pavilion as an interactive exhibition showcasing urban sustainability using upcycled shipping containers. The project was intended as a demo on the possibilities of containerized housing schemes. The architects say, "[We have] based its approach on the cradle-to-cradle principle, consigning the use-and-throw-out approach to the graveyard. The idea is simple: take a surplus product like an old, empty shipping container and give it some value again. In this way you have a supremely sustainable solution which can quickly be made exclusive in spite of the materials’ original use." While this isn’t the first container architecture we’ve seen, I love the juxtaposition of the pavilion with the global imperative of COP15, which begins to draw possible connections between architectural innovations with the future of our planet.