the LOT-EK movie

a documentary by Thomas Piper on our practice, questioning beauty and impact of the shipping container

Type
Film
Client

n/a

completed

2023

Location

New York / Hudson / Naples, Italy / Johannesburg, South Africa / Cape Akritas, cargo ship from Kingston Jamaica to Savannah Georgia

Size

director

Thomas Piper

executive producer

Sherri Wolf

advisors

Jorge Fontanez / Thomas de Monchaux / Marques McClary

Awards

impact & significance

upcycling is the art and science of repurposing, remaking, rethinking, reimagining. Of using old things in new ways. The shipping container is the thing that has captured our imagination for over a quarter-century: we have remade containers into homes, schools, galleries, libraries, and more. With hundreds of millions of obsolete and unused containers around the world, this is a new and necessary architecture of the future, that repairs and regenerates the unnatural environment that we have inherited from the past. WE START WITH THE THINGS WE FIND is a feature-length documentary of this vision, and of the soulful lifelong partnership of the people, designers Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, behind it

related object:
shipping container
related project:

Feb 10, 2026

Inside an NYC Townhouse Made From 18 Shipping Containers

Inside an NYC Townhouse Made From 18 Shipping Containers

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View project

Dec 12, 2025

We Start With The Things We Find

We Start With The Things We Find

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