People don't typically associate shipping containers with venues for living, playing, or getting an education. But actually, in a lot of places in the world such as USA, UK and Western Europe, these refurbished shipping containers are part of a new and trendy way to live.

In Beijing, smaller shipping container apartments are also becoming more popular. In China, non-profit Compassion for Migrant Children, or CMC, got the idea to use these sturdy inhabitable containers for Beijing's migrant communities.

Andrea Hunt has the story:

'Migrant Community Cubes' are a new way to provide portable, sturdy, and nurturing environments for migrant communities. This is the first community center of its kind in China but Compassion for Migrant Children hopes this will become more possible in the future. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

 China's migrant population is, as the name implies, never in one place. The problem is that neither are their community facilities. Backed with generous donations and led by American founder Jonathan Hursh, the folks at Compassion for Migrant Children got a novel idea. Bright, refurbished shipping containers turned into modern and comfy community centers.

Communications Director Yin Chia from Australia explains why.

'Migrant Community Cubes' are a new way to provide portable, sturdy, and nurturing environments for migrant communities. This is the first community center of its kind in China but Compassion for Migrant Children hopes this will become more possible in the future. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

"Compassion for Migrant Children believes that in order to really holistically benefit a community, we need to operate along side them-which means, being in the heart of these migrant communities or migrant slums.

Unfortunately, being in heart of these migrant communities or slums is often very unstable. They are often on the outskirts of these urban cities and at anytime can be classified for redevelopment as an urban city grows. Our very first center no longer exists, because the land was needed to make way for development. So, we were forced to reconsider the way we design our communities and that's how we came up with the shipping container center."

In China, shipping containers are already used for construction laborer accommodation, but they are not typically of the same standard or quality. But CMC's General Manager Conrad Han from Beijing says it gave them reason to research.

"We Google'd some venders and we found out that there are some vendors in China who can build these things as well; that's totally the idea. And so we communicated with these venders to see if they can turn it into a reality and finally, we made it. Actually, these are customized; these are only for us, only for this community center. It's a classroom, not for people to live in, so we've had to do a lot of changes to meet this requirement."

No, inhabiting storage containers is not a new concept in China or elsewhere, but utilizing their portability for a non profit organization is part of its innovation. Twenty thousand RMB buys a new, clean, refurbished container. Surprisingly, this is more expensive than buying trailers or even constructing concrete or brick facilities.