New Upcycled Container Cafe in Austin

By archives on Dec. 24, 2009 | Topics: Container Design, Retail | 5 Comments

Mark Meyer of Austin-based designSTUDIO recently pointed us to one of his newest projects, la Boite. La Boite is a green, environmentally sensitive cafe with locally baked goods, sandwiches, and coffee. It was built from an old shipping container, and if you’re interested in details of the transformation, read more about it on designSTUDIO’s blog. For the project, DesignSTUDIO used Rainwater HOG’s for greywater collection, biobased spray foam insulation, and Forbo linoleum for the floor and one wall. You can find la Boite on 1700 South Lamar Boulevard in Austin, Texas. Looks fun, doesn’t it?

Photo credits: designSTUDIO.

Article tags: Austin

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Sea Wolf

Doesn’t look “fun” so much as it looks like a shipping container. Which is all well and good, and maybe even slightly better for the planet than the small amount of building materials it replaces. But I, for one, don’t want to see whole cities done up in cast-off shipping containers . . . a most pathetic legacy of our profligate ways.
- http://profiles.google.com/colinhand Colin Hand
  
  This place is great. Even more impressive in person. The floor-wall has to be seen to be appreciated. The best thing about the project is how it took a corner strip center and turned it into a real destination. There’s another food trailer on the property, The Texas Cuban, and with the addition of la Boite the landscape there is really tied together.
  
  BTW, I totally agree with Sea Wolf. Trade is bad (like smog and trans fat). It’s especially bad when you take the products that you want to trade and put them in boxes. To take it a bit further, I also don’t like trash cans because people put trash in them and it’s a legacy of discards. And it’s dirty. So please stop making cafes out of trash cans and instead make them out of paper mache because paper mache is fun.
http://mportlandrealestate.com/ Portland Condo Auctions

Interesting. Is it portable because they move often? Or was this just an interesting project that they did?

-Tyler
- http://designstudiomodern.typepad.com designSTUDIO
  
  It is portable because that is the way the Mobile Food Vendor ordinance that allows this sort of business is written. As far as I know the trailer won’t be moved until the lease on the land runs out or they decide to move to another location for some other reason.
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