Excerpt: Petti Restaurant by Wallmakers explores a design concept rooted in reuse and climate response in Tuticorin. Discarded shipping containers are combined with poured earth, bringing together steel and mud to create a thermally efficient structure. The project reimagines marine waste through modular construction, transforming an abandoned material into a sustainable architectural system.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] Tuticorin, a port city, has been the center of maritime trade for the last 2000 years. The sheer number of shipping containers discarded in the city made us combine two materials that are usually not combined: steel and mud. The site in Tuticorin, for building a 200 people capacity restaurant was a very narrow and linear plot of land. We wanted to utilise one of the most abandoned marine wastes: shipping containers and also explore modular construction.
Each container was set vertically, as we wanted better room heights, as opposed to the 2.4m dimensions that are generally available when containers are set horizontally. The 12 cut containers were placed using a crane in a span of 1 week and then welded together to form the basic structure of the building along with a few RCC slabs that were added to connect at the floor levels. Being situated in an open site in a region that was hot throughout the year, we added a layer of poured earth on the external surface of the containers to reduce the heat gain and provide insulation.
The pattern was further worked out to make it an alternatively recessed one for better thermal efficiency and to reduce the load on the air conditioning systems by 38%. Every alternate container was staggered and we designed the South facing first floor without any wall openings so that the floating containers allowed for better ventilation (In the case of a passively ventilated scenario).
The interiors were designed keeping up with the raw and natural texture of the container to create cozy seating areas in the corners. 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. Each seating space is naturally lit during the day with a skylight and by a chandelier in the evenings,which has been custom designed with old wax and pipes. Discarded deck wood and oxide form the flooring of the project.
“PETTI” Restaurant, meaning ‘box’ in Tamil, is a prime example that with the right facade treatment, shipping containers, which is a major marine waste, can be used extensively as a thermally efficient material in Tropical urban areas.
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