Pune's Dhara Kabaria, a designer by profession, has hit upon the most innovative idea ever - she and her team turn shipping containers into beautiful homes which can be installed just about anywhere, particularly so on farm plots. The idea came to her out of her passion to convert waste material or scrap into utility items

Would you ever fancy living in a shipping container? Now that, you would say, is unimaginable! But not to Pune-based Dhara Kabaria who, with her team, has turned a cargo container into a beautiful home. What makes this more interesting is that her firm, Studio Alternatives, has also turned it into a business model and is already attracting enquiries from farmhouse owners and others who have taken a fancy to this rather weird but charming concept. Dhara is a recycling junkie and that is probably how this idea hit her. And it's not just about a container. Even iron and steel pipes, discarded corrugated boxes, plastic bins, old computer motherboards, paint buckets and so on are all raw material for this designer-cum-entrepreneur who turns them into elegant pieces of furniture and other utility items.

This certainly makes Dhara a designer with a difference. Her products, made from alternative material, are impressive and the innovative ideas with which she transforms discarded material into high-end products are stunning. And she has gone beyond making just artifacts from reused material. An alumnus of the Centre for Environmental Planning & Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad, the research-based course in interior design she pursued in Kent, United Kingdom, gave her the confidence to specialise in creating visually-appealing products for daily use. As to what attracted her to pursue a line in using alternative material for interior designing, Dhara says, "I did a one-year post-graduate course in design from Kent Institute of Art & Design in the UK and had the chance to meet some creative individuals who were applying innovative ideas to make wonderful designs and objects from 'discarded material'. So I chose this as the subject of my research. What motivated me further was the fact that designing products using alternative material, method and process can go a long way."

The founder secretary of the National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, Dashrath Patel, was a major influence. "He gave me a lot of exposure so that I could evolve. I worked with various companies and did regular interior designing as well. But since 2009, I started concentrating on reuse and renovation and along with my sister Dolly, who is a photographer, I started Studio Alternatives. In 2012, I started the workshop with Kiran Marre. As workshop head, he transforms designs into products," Dhara adds.

The 320 sq.ft home built out of a shipping container has been put up at a site in Pirangut, 35 kilometres from Pune. It is powered by solar energy and took seven weeks to build. It has put into use recycled materials for home decor. "I had been itching to experiment with this idea. Finally, a few months ago, I found a client who was willing to take the risk," Dhara says. The client wanted a home, which was not too intrusive to the environment. And that's how the 'container' home took shape. Shipping containers, she explains, are extremely sturdy, and more than ten of these, full to capacity, are often stacked in ships. For the home she built, Dhara bought a used container from Bombay Port Trust. Her biggest challenge was to prevent the metal home from heating up. So, she first insulated the container from the inside, using cement sheets as walls and lining the insulated metal with reused wood on the outside. The bathroom, too, was difficult to build, as the pipes couldn't be concealed like they are in regular brick walls. To fix the problem, she used aluminium composite panel sheets instead in a trendy charcoal colour. The home is powered with eco-friendly LED lights and uses paint buckets as stools whose cushions are lined with discarded jeans. "Container architecture is not popular in India yet because portable housing is largely seen as a low-income option. Many clients also ask me the inevitable - 'If it is made of scrap, why is it expensive?' The reason is that skilled labour is not easy to come by and I trained a large group to work on this home," she explains.

The home cost the client Rs 15 lakh but Dhara claims she can design a much cheaper one. "This particular home is a rather swanky one, as per the client's brief - the high-end fittings, home decor products, amenities, etc., add to the cost. But someone who wants a more modest home from a shipping container can have it for much cheaper," she adds. Her studio now has five clients who have approached her for a similar project. She says she will consider this design a success when she can shatter the hackneyed notion that shipping containers cannot be used for complex designs in homes and offices. "I am experimenting with them by building my own office which will use two containers. Then, I plan to stack multiple containers above one another and still build strong, cheap spaces. It will take some time to come out of the brick and mortar mentality, and here's a start," she says.

It is not as if using scrap material to make artefacts is a new idea. There are many who do it. But Dhara says that her approach is different. "Most of the products made from waste, available in the market today, are decorative items or artefacts. We have lamps, cards, etc., which flood the market during festivals, but our speciality is that we also design everyday utility items. Besides taking care of aesthetics, we explore the possibilities of how an antiquated, broken chair can be reused or recycled," she states. Dhara has made lamps from scrap PVC pipes, which were sourced from construction sites. These have also been fashioned out of birdcage and scrap plastic bags. Renovating an Indian low stool, she has converted it into a low-side table. "We have made a conference table from old doors and reclaimed chairs. Using discarded computer motherboards we have made wall cladding," she elaborates. Dhara now has a plan to establish a pan-India presence. "After the successful installation of our first container home, we already have inquiries from Bangalore, Goa, Mumbai, Alibaug, Pune, Lavasa and Rajasthan. We are currently working on developing a system that would help us in setting up a larger network," she says.

Studio Alternatives, Pune. Mobile: 096890-98209.
Website: www.studioalternatives.com