A Funky New Joburg Mall is Container-ised
Maboneng, Joburg’s hot new shopping and eating area, was one of the first to glam up old shipping containers with glass windows and wooden floors to turn them into retail shops, but now Melville has gone one better by creating the 27Boxes mall out of over two dozen of them. Opened in July, the mall is one of the […]
Maboneng, Joburg’s hot new shopping and eating area, was one of the first to glam up old shipping containers with glass windows and wooden floors to turn them into retail shops, but now Melville has gone one better by creating the 27Boxes mall out of over two dozen of them.
Opened in July, the mall is one of the latest innovative projects in Johannesburg to use shipping containers to make living or retail space.
Taking its influence from Boxpark, the four-year-old container mall in London’s Shoreditch, as well as Paris’ out-there George Pompidour Centre, 27Boxes then added plants, rolling lawn, and brick and concrete to give it its own spacial feel. The containers are configured into three floors.
“27Boxes is pioneering in concept and design, and profiles Johannesburg at the forefront of international design and bold ideas,” the 27Boxes’ website says.
Says local Georg Knoke, who took some of the pictures here: “Sometimes I’m a stranger in my own neighbourhood! Discovered the 27Boxes in Melville today – and what a treasure trove!”
The mall has been built on what used to be Faan Smit Park, between 3rd and 4th Avenues close to 7th Street. Transferred from the city to a private company on tender in the late 1990s, the land fell into disuse, was occupied by vagrants and finally closed in 2008. Numerous projects fell by the wayside until 27Boxes came along.
The project is not the first using containers for the company Citiq. In 2014 it created Mill Junction, converting unused grain silos into 375 affordable student apartments, as well as study facilities, libraries, lounges and computer rooms. The 11-story silos were adjoined by stacks of containers.
