If you haven’t watched TV, read a newspaper, or been on the T in the last month or so, you may be forgiven for not knowing about Puma City.
Puma City, a pop-up store currently set up on Fan Pier near the ICA, is an assemblage of 24 shipping containers. The use of shipping containers makes it perfectly suited for Puma’s involvement in the Volvo Ocean Race series, a 9-month sailing race around the world. Designed by Lot-Ek, the building can be disassembled, placed on a cargo ship, sent to the next location and assembled again.
While the structure of the shipping containers is evident throughout, Puma City has an open, airy feel, with double-height spaces, lots of glass windows and skylights, two patios and a pretty wicked cantilever that mimics the ICA’s in a smaller scale.
Puma City bringing the idea of mixed-use down to an almost microscale. During the Volvo Ocean Race’s 3-week stay at Fan Pier, Puma City will house retail, office space, a bar, and storage. I can see spaces in Boston, like the nearby Achilles Project, begin to off multiple services in one space, for prime economic efficiency.
Shipping containers, recylced into housing (or commercial space) are an innovative approach to sustainable architecture – one that, conceivably, could be relatively inexpensive - and one that I would love to see incorporated into Boston architectural design. In fact, a couple of my friends are investigating the feasability of shipping containers for their next home. Too bad there are almost no empty lots left in the city.
