There have been a couple popular articles out recently about Starbucks opening a location in former shipping containers.

No, these aren’t ‘prefab homes‘ that we normally talk about here, but they are a version of prefab buildings, and these shipping containers have been discussed on this blog before as a type of prefab home.

It’s both interesting and exciting to see a corporation such as Starbucks incorporating a prefab building as one of their new retail locations.

Not only is this location made predominantly out of shipping containers, but the rest of the building is made out of recycled materials, and incorporates other environmentally friendly attributes:

• rainwater is collected from the roof

• ‘xeriscaping’ is utilized to reduce water needs and consumption

Architect Tony Gale III of Starbucks said the following:

“We can put a store like this on a lot that will be developed someday but is free for two or three years, and then we can move it.”

Photo Credit: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/01/21/starbucks-coffee-now-served-in-cargo-containers