From Shipping Container to Healthcare Clinic

Shipping containers – noteworthy for their modularity, durability and availability – have long provided material and inspiration for designers and architects looking for new ways of envisioning and constructing our physical environment. We’ve seen these steel behemoths transformed into everything from pop-up shops to dwellings, giving second life to objects that would otherwise simply take up space. Adding to that list of creative reuse is Containers 2 Clinics, an ongoing project that seeks to bring healthcare services to underserved communities in developing countries around the world. Their website explains the thinking behind their mission:

A shipping container, once retrofitted for use as a health clinic, is a durable, standardized, adaptable, secure structure with significant potential for replication and consistent care services. The interior of an industrial shipping container can be renovated to allow space for a small consultation room, a small laboratory, an office for staff, and storage and inventory space. Modified for ventilation, light, and utility connections, a container clinic provides a personalized, local-level venue for community members to seek treatment services or preventive health education.

Though this model is primarily designed to be a stationary structure – either as a standalone or complement to a preexisting facility – we imagine that it can be further developed into a mobile unit that can be transported between areas when necessary. Become a member of their Facebook group here.

[via Makezine]