A shipping container project at this scale is complex! 17 containers in the main building (plus 4 more elsewhere), coordinating delivery, keeping track of which container goes where…

Moving Containers / Exterior / Interior

The first thing that had to happen was to level and fill the land, keeping all of the trees as much as possible.  Two trees had to be removed — one small one and one that was on the property line and in danger of falling into an adjacent property. We also worked closely with the crane operator to ensure the trees were not damaged during the lifting and moving of the containers.

Once the plans for the ISDSI building were finalized, our architect flew to the ports in Bangkok to select the containers.  Each container was selected for its specific location in the building to ensure that any damages to the container walls were in areas to be removed, etc.

Following that, the containers were brought up to Chiang Mai in reverse order of how they would be stacked so that the could be pulled from the forward containers working backwards.

One of the biggest challenges (and what slowed down the construction) was that by the time everything was planned and finalized we were into rainy season. Containers were on site, but the trucks and cranes were in danger of getting stuck, and with heavy rains construction and moving containers had to be delayed.  Once the containers were all in place, interior work started and continued through the end of rainy season.

The construction took about 9 months.

All the cutting and build out was done on-site.  We made that decision to ensure that the containers would remain in good shape and structurally sound (uncut) while being craned into place.  That also allowed us to ensure that the loading was correct before cutting.

All of the off-cuts were saved and used for interior walls, sinks in the bathrooms, bathroom stalls, and a kiosk and welcome counter in both our CrossFit gym and the campus cafe.