The architectural design studio LOT-EK recreates unique architectural and artistic spaces using shipping containers and other detritus of our industrialized economy.

LOT-EK, the visionary architecture studio has reimagined the shipping container for over 30 years. This structure and other detritus of our industrialized economy have become the materials for unique architectural and artistic spaces. Through creative pursuits, it has become a prophet of adaptive reuse, ecological construction and unexpected beauty.
LOT-EK, founded by the Neapolitan architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, is among the most visionary and esteemed architecture studios in the United States. For over 30 years, they have been creating unique architectural and artistic spaces by repurposing shipping containers and other waste materials of our industrialized economy. As a result of their creative exploration, they have pioneered adaptive reuse and ecological construction. This documentary is a feature-length examination of their provocative practice and a recipe for fighting the evils of our hyper-consumerist society.
Thomas Piper is an award-winning film-maker specializing in documenting contemporary artists and designers. His Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, won the 2018 Polly Krakora Award for Artistry in Film from the DC Environmental Film Festival, and is still in global theatrical release. His film Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments won Best Film for Television at the prestigious International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal.

In addition, he has directed, photographed and/or edited more than 25 other films on painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and writers. His subjects have included the artists Kiki Smith, Sol LeWitt, Alex Katz, Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brancusi, the writer James Salter, the poet Billy Collins, the art historian Vincent Scully, the architects Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Jean Nouvel and Thom Mayne, and the only architects to win MacArthur “genius” grants, Jeanne Gang and Diller + Scofidio.