Mud-coated shipping containers form Petti restaurant in India by Wallmakers

A cluster of stacked shipping containers has been coated in a layer of poured earth to create this restaurant in Tamil Nadu, India, designed by local studio Wallmakers.
Named Petti, meaning box in Tamil, the 439-square-metre restaurant is located on a narrow site in Tuticori, an industrial port city in which discarded shipping containers are a familiar sight.

Wallmakers used this surplus of abandoned containers as the starting point for its design, cutting twelve of them in half lengthways and welding them to a steel frame.

This created a series of zigzagging walls, which were then coated in a perforated grid of poured earth.

"The sheer number of shipping containers discarded in the city made us combine two materials that are usually not combined: steel and mud," said Wallmakers.

"Each container was set vertically, as we wanted better room heights, as opposed to the 2.4-metre dimensions that are generally available when containers are set horizontally," the studio told Dezeen.

"The twelve cut containers were placed using a crane in a span of one week and then welded together to form the basic structure of the building, along with a few reinforced concrete cement slabs that were added to connect at the floor levels."

To create Petti's long, narrow form, the shipping container halves were organised in a staggered grid, with alternating sections being raised off the ground to create glazed openings below and high-level openings above.

This arrangement ensures that the dining areas on both levels of the two-storey restaurant have access to natural light, while also creating a stack ventilation effect that helps to cool the interiors.

Covering the exterior of the containers is a layer of poured earth, which gently curves outwards where it meets the ground.

This earth coating was applied in a perforated grid, with gaps that reveal the original surface of each container and help to improve the building's thermal efficiency.

The diagrid arrangement of shipping containers informed the interior layout, with booths and triangular tables tucked into each container half.

A deep shade of red covers the interior surfaces of the metal containers, complemented by chandeliers made from old pipes and areas of flooring made from discarded wood.

"The layout was planned in a way that it allowed each group of guests to have their own private niche, even within such a narrow plot," said the studio.

"The interiors were designed keeping up with the raw and natural texture of the container to create cozy seating areas in the corners," it added.

Wallmakers is an architecture studio established by Vinu Daniel in 2007. In 2023, Daniel faced criticism on social media for his studio's use of unpaid internships, which he claims have an important educational benefit.

Elsewhere, the studio also recently created a habitable bridge home in rural Karjat, which is covered entirely in a surface of furry thatch scales, and a house in Kerala made with discarded toys.

The photography is by Studio Iksha.

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