Connex — the office and retail park just off Interstate 35 and East Rosedale Street — has a way of sticking out in its neighborhood. Made from shipping containers, stacked somewhat asymmetrically and splashed with striking colors like orange, red and green, the building is a bit reminiscent of a child’s Lego house.
And that was the idea, says Jie Melchiors, partner at architecture firm MEL/ARCH. “The inspiration is really from the kids.”
Building a shipping container office wouldn’t be as easy as stacking Legos, though, as Jie and architect/husband Matthijs discovered. Working as their own general contractor with no experience using such nontraditional materials, it would take ingenuity, a little DIY and a few sleepless nights to turn 40 shipping containers into a multi-tenant office that doesn’t feel like a box.
“Staging those containers and building [them] in a very logical order, even thinking about how to not block yourself by stacking them — it’s a lot of challenges,” Jie Melchiors says.
One of the main challenges was making the small space feel less restricting. With a 5,000-square-foot lot to work on, MEL/ARCH brought in 40 shipping containers from China, each ranging from 20-footers to 40-footers and reaching about 9-feet-6-inches tall. Despite the limited square footage of each unit, the spaces feel surprisingly open and airy, thanks to not just the added windows but the arrangement of the boxes themselves — one can stand in their office, peer through the glass and see into the next space.
This conference room table has no screws, held together by notches in the wood. Photograph: Olaf Growald
Olaf Growald
Connex is built from about 40 shipping containers. Photograph: Olaf Growald
Olaf Growald
The parking surface is made from permeable paving to reduce stormwater runoff. Photograph: Olaf Growald
Connex also offers sweeping views of the surrounding neighborhood and downtown. Photograph: Olaf Growald
Olaf Growald
A small model of Connex is in Matthijs Melchiors' office. Photographs: Olaf Growald
Olaf Growald