Luxury – Shanghai Metal Corporation

Christmas “Gifties”!

It’s Christmas time! If you are wondering what to buy your loved ones as gifts, here are a few ideas. We offer all types of metal which are used to make your lovely pots, cutlery, trays and other ornamentals used in fine dining. So why not look to us to see what types of metal was used to make you these products! We have a wide range of metal products including stainless steel cutlery which is an essential part of your kitchen.

If you are looking to revamp your kitchen to give it a new look for the new year, we have stainless steel strip for kitchen benches and sink , we also have other metal products for your taps and other fittings in the house. For a different look, you may also want to have a look at our copper and brass fittings options.

Our wide range of metal products can also give your bathrooms a unique look.. Spoil yourself! Get your copper input material from us and have your extraordinary look well in time for the new year!

For those on a smaller budget and not looking for major changes like a home make over, why not get our copper sheets to make bracelets with initials of your loved ones on it!

SMC wishes you all Happy Holidays, and successful gift buying!

Lebo Seopane//SMC Editor

Credits: SMC website, Google images, Harts of Stur-Arthur Price Kings

Recreate your recreational areas!

Refresh your mind after a long day and relax in a beautiful, luxurious patio made from our wood plastic composite deck (WPC deck). At SMC, we offer a great deal of building systems to suit your needs. Our version of WPC deck is particularly beneficial because it has featured characteristics of both wood and plastic, making it highly durable.

Enjoy a not only lovely looking patio but also, but also reap the benefits of low maintenance work, and less energy towards cleaning. Our wood plastic allows you to just wipe the floor, as opposed to pure wood which needs varnishing. We save you the trouble!

We offer durable, less hassle flooring solution for your patios, children’s playground, pool side and other outdoor areas; as well as indoor facilities such as restaurants, halls, etc. WPC decks are great, you don’t have to worry about wood rotting like the natural one would, thus making it more sustainable.

Our WPC deck’s combined features of plastic and wood enables it to have the enhanced look of wood, and gives you liberty to have less worries about varnishing ,or worrying about the wood changing colour or getting damaged for instance when it rains or children spill liquids on it . Worry not about those spills ruining the floor!

For your more intimate ,indoor events, our WPC deck building system comes handy as a dance floor, for gyms, halls, theatres and other recreational areas that need operational open space.

Compliment your outdoor areas with our WPC deck paired with artificial grass and flaunt your attractive, soothing and calming environment created from our best suited products. Save water with our artificial grass, and enjoy the eco-friendly features of the WPC deck. Cut down maintenance costs and save your energy with SMC! Save the planet and have less trees cut down for your lovely floor, at SMC we care about the earth.

Get an inquiry or visit our website for more information. Scan the QR code below to download our application; and stay clued up with our latest updates, follow us on these social media platforms:

Lebogang Seopane//SMC Intern

Credits: SMC website, Google images

Home Sweet-Metal Home

What if almost everything in your apartment was made out of metals? If warm wooden kitchen cabinets, floors, furniture and other furnishings were cold grey wouldn’t you feel like in a prison? It would definitely differ your home from others but calling it a “sweet home”…Although I have to admit that it looks modern and minimalist and some people might love it.

Peter Kostelov, a designer who created a metal home in Moscow, Russia, uses industrial materials for almost everything. The apartment has steel walls, doors, windows, floors, furniture, even sofa is made mostly out of steel. He divided the wide-open space into a series of individual rooms. Materials that are natural part of a construction process became the core element for style and decor in this project. This concept seems a bit extreme but perfect for industrial lovers.

If this metal interior is too much for you, you can still apply incorporate in some decorations to make your home luxurious as the one in Shanghai, China – Xintiandi Penthouse. Hong Kong architect Joyce Wang “celebrated metal” in this three-story apartment. She got inspiration in three concrete metals, sheet metal, weathered metal and metal cabling.

The curved staircase up to the roof of the penthouse is created out of bent sheet metal and living room’s walls are lined with corten steel.

Metal cabling was woven between the balustrade and the baseline of the apartment’s central staircase and it created screened-off dining area.

What is very interesting, the bedrooms in the apartment don’t have any windows. Instead, windows line a shared corridor which leads to the bedrooms. Read more here.

Shanghai Metal Corporation provides various types of metal products. We manufacture and produce stainless steel, steel, copper, aluminum. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. English speaking staff will guide you further. Download an application by scanning QR code below and follow us on Social Media, where you can find more interesting facts about our products and a company itself.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits : dezeen.com, weburbanist.com, dornob.com, vongudlach.com, googleimages

Container Island Resorts – America’s New Dubai

Did you know that there are over 4000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico that will be decommissioned within the next century. These oil rigs occupy approximately 80 million square feet of area in the ocean. Basically the only way to remove them is to blow them into oblivion which would cost millions of dollars and destroy a major part of the Gulf’s aquatic life. What if these oil rigs could be used in another way?

The idea of turning the oil rigs into luxurious hotel resorts was already presented in 2009 by Morris Architects who also won the top prize in a hospitality design design contest with this concept. This idea also introduces an application for shipping containers.

The idea is to prefabricate hotel pods off-site out of shipping containers and transport them into the oil rigs with cargo ships. These new island resorts are also been referred as America’s Dubai. The BLDGBLOG site has put it also to a poetic perspective by comparing the resorts as the Kalevala of Abandoned Oil Rigs.

Prefabricating and transporting the hotels onto the rigs a relatively simple procedure. The challenges are more related to maintenance and business side. How to ensure security on the resort, how to handle stormy weather conditions, how to price them and how to maintain a steady flow of customers?

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a professional provider of prefabricated container hotels. You may see our website for detailed descriptions of our hotels. If you have any questions, please contact us with this form. Check also our social media sites for future updates.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: BLDGBLOG, LA Curbed, Dornob, Morris Architects, Design Ideas, The Telegraph, Paul Baut, Tree Hugger, Bustler

See our other articles about shipping container hotels.

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Container B&B Completes Your Dream Vacation in Spain!

If you’re planning a vacation in Majorca, this is the place where you want to lodge! Located 10 minutes from the capital Palma, there is a luxurious bed and breakfast facility that is made out of three shipping containers.

The “Fly House” B&B has basically everything that everybody wants from their holiday accommodation. It has a modern open planned living area with full kitchen, living room and a rooftop bedroom. The Fly House is also equipped with high-speed Internet and cable TV.

This holiday bungalow also has an outdoor deck with a swimming pool and a BBQ dining area. The outdoor facility has also a private Japanese garden and a hammock for relaxation.

Even though its space is very limited, the room feels really spacious. Its spiral staircase saves a lot of space. Also its shelves and sofa can can be closed and opened with a push of a button for extra space.

This container complex was prefabricated off-site and plunked with the least amount of energy, waste and cost. Thanks to shipping containers, this facility can be easily expanded and transferred to a different location. Its solar panels enable energy efficient and low-cost electricity usage. Floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate the room with natural light. Rainwater is harvested by gutters and reused for outdoor plants.

The Fly House designer company Espai Fly would like to see their container housing business expanding from hotels to also cafes, retail outlets and even private homes.

Shipping containers seem to be the superior material for creating affordable real-estate that is both luxurious and affordable. For instance this private bungalow costs only about 110 US dollars a day. You can check the current prices and book from here.

While container architecture is going mainstream, Shanghai Metal Corporation continues in fulfilling shipping container orders from around the globe. If you wish to order this superior material, please send us an inquiry. You may also visit our container house page. Follow us also in these social media platforms.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Sources: Architizer, designboom, Espai Fly

Book on AirBnB

Please use the the social media boxes below to SHARE this article to reach all the friends of sustainable architecture everywhere.

Luxurious Teaware Design Inspired by Ferrari

One of the world’s most complex teaware techniques, Tsuiki craftsmanship (‘tsuikidoki’ in Japanese) has its roots among the famous rice fields of Niigata, in the town of Tsubame. Claimed to be the only ones in the world who know and use these techniques with such a perfection, teaware and sake-ware craftshop Gyokusendo reveals the key behind its copperware success.

Patience is all it requires during the twenty to thirty years learning process to become a tsuikidoki craftsman. Such a profession doesn’t cost only time but also big bucks. Trying to give a more modern look to the two hundred year-old technique of hand-hammering copper sheets, Gyokusendo saw the designer extraordinaire Ken Okuyama, a wristwatches lover, especially those from TAG Heuer, as a great partner.

The 51-year-old made a name for himself as the Pininfarina design director behind the Ferrari Enzo, Maserati Quattroporte, and Maserati Birdcage concept. Since leaving the Italian styling powerhouse in 2006, Okuyama has expanded his design focus to encompass everything from iron tea pots to eyewear, furniture to massage chairs, motorcycles to sports cars, buildings to robots and even the next-generation Shinkansen bullet train.

Now, his drawings had to become reality in the hands of the artisans at Gyokusendo who were met with the challenge of turning copper sheets into three dimensional teapot. Experienced smiths master this fine art and are able to strike the copper sheet just enough, which is crucial since it’s difficult to make the copper contract later on.

Gyokusendo’s copperware of a wide variety of colors and shades is unique. The surface oxidization adds a nice patina to the artwork when tin and potassium sulfide are fused onto the surface of the copper.

You may wonder why copper is so special in this art. Well, copper has antibacterial properties, and it purifies the water, meaning that the copper ions mellow the flavor of the tea and sake. So over the time it becomes even more lustrous, and the flavor becomes more full and rich: copper turns ordinary water into ‘good water’, to mellow tea, and mellow sake.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as copper, widely used in architectural artifacts such as Gyokusendo’s teaware and sake-ware. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking professionals will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source: gyokusendo.com, designboom.com, motortrend.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Luxurious Dream House Looks Like A James Bond-Inspired Villa

Dream houses are all over LA and its surroundings. But I bet you haven’t seen the Desert House designed by super-organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg in Joshua Tree, located in Californias’ Mojave Desert is a fusion of what resembles a dinosaur-boned structure with a Flintstonesy feel.

Inspired by the rugged and hard surroundings the exterior of the house seems like an extension of it. Dramatically perched on the slope of a rocky hill overlooking the Mojave Desert, the property seems to disseminate amongst the rocks and stones. That feeling was only made possible due to somewhat a texture that could provide the numerous cast-concrete slabs of the exterior with touch and feel of the desert as materials.

The 3-bedroom house work began in 1988 and finished in 1993 in the 10-acre space, but the interior took about a decade for Kellogg and designer John Vurgin to create and design the house that the owners Doolittle always dreamed about. The Desert House is priced at $3 million, heating up the luxury real estate market of the Coachella Valley and surrounding desert. What makes the house so special and attractive is its balance of organic architecture. The masculine outside is counter-balanced by a somewhat feminine and warm intimate space by using concrete, steel, glass and copper for the interior, making the space genuinely comfortable to live in.

Highlights of the interiors are the parasol in the dining room made of some 800 pieces of sandblasted glass, the master bedroom’s self-standing bronze washing basin, massive amount of light and sun entering through continuous openings that separate the towering concrete panels. It is like living in a piece of art, every little detail in the house has been carefully thought of. You even feel like in a spa when listening to the water sound by the indoors waterfall. What about the scenery of the wide open arid landscape provided by spending some time in the bathtub? Breathtaking at the least.

“You don’t copy nature, you don’t emulate it, you take it for what it’s worth”, says Kellogg.

If there is any interest in checking out the property more details can be found at TTK Represents.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as copper, widely used in architectural artifacts and construction. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking professionals will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: organicmodernestate.com, yatzer.com, hiconsumption.com, la.curbed.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

A New Shine to Luxury

In this day and age, we are surrounded with luxury goods at every corner- from designer clothes, to exotic cars. The problem for some is not the ability to buy something of luxury, but to truly have something unique, something that can’t be seen parked on every street in Beverly Hills-enter stainless steel; a new way to turn heads.

Ok, the fact of the matter is that you will indeed turn heads if you buy a normal Lamborghini Murcielago almost everywhere in the world. But a stainless steel Lamborghini Murcielago is what separates you and positions yourself in a separate status quo completely. Perhaps this is not something that everyone dreams off, but to have a beautiful car be transformed into an impermeable work of art due to stainless steels characteristics is something out of a science fiction novel.

You might ask yourself why? The answer is quite simple, why not. Yes, it may be a bit ostentatious and you will definitely turn heads, but in reality you were going to do that anyway, so why not do it with a bit more shine to it. As a matter-of-fact, these individuals are not just putting a new shine to a luxury item, but reaching for its full potential in automotive performance. With stainless steel having characteristics of temperature resistance, rust, and stain resistance who is to say that this car is probably the only to reach its full top speed due to its temperature resistance and as well perhaps the only car that does not need a car-wash.

Luxury is and will always be something that is pushed to the edge; however this edge might not just be flamboyant but in fact beneficial. As Stainless Steel Industry Professional, Shanghai Metal Corporation takes pride in the manufacturing of those products which are used in our customer’s daily life such as stainless steel which our company manufactures and supplies at the highest quality and most affordable price. Perhaps this will be the new approach to luxury, which can only mean one thing-more stainless steel please.

To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source: Speed Hunters, Flint Expats

Mario B.//SMC Editor

Container Summer Pavilions – Luxury for the Modest

Have you ever dreamed about having a summer cottage of your own? Are you considering to buy one or perhaps to build it yourself? Building a vacation house according to one’s own design sounds fantastic, but you might be worried about the costs or confused about the choice of material. Luckily, there is a solution – shipping containers!

Besides shipping goods, shipping containers are also suitable for building beautiful homes in low cost. Actually, the price of an individual 40 ft or 20ft shipping container starts from US 2000. There are at least two reasons why the price is that low.

First, the manufacturing process is standardized according to ISO regulations enabling businesses to put containers into mass production. Second, there is a lot of oversupply of containers. According to some statistics, nearly 10,000 units sink annually in the world’s seas and thousands will be abandoned after their first use (read more about a case).

Building out of recycled shipping containers is as good as using totally new ones, and it is also cheaper. Shipping containers are meant to last for ages and tolerate extreme weather conditions in the oceans. Therefore besides low-cost, shipping containers are also durable and can be considered as a form of sustainable building. Containers are so durable that they can even be converted into shelters for natural disasters.

What’s more, shipping containers come with unlimited design opportunities. The door solutions of shipping containers come in many forms and open-top containers can be transformed into swimming pools. Thanks to the pillars in their four corners, containers can be piled into a complexes of your desire. There are great examples of homes, hotels and stores that show container’s great architectural design. The container city in Mexico is know also for its visual design.

Inspiration for building an own container summer pavilion can be found in the container summer house competition organized by AC-CA. The pictures of these articles include representatives of the best contestant of the competition.

Besides vision and desire, you also will need the material. We in Shanghai Metal Corporation have a long history of providing standardized shipping containers for our international clients. We also have prefabricated container villa solutions that we ship worldwide. For more details about our products, please visit our website or send us an inquiry.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Bustler, Bustler, Competitiononline, AC-CA, Wikipedia on Shipping Container Architecture

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

What?! Car Flying Over London?

You probably have seen Smart Cars jumping over a bridge every single day in Rotterdam but I bet you haven’t seen the 2015 Jaguar XE flying over central London in the beginning of this month.

jaguar6 — Jaguar XE leaving its factory in Solihull

In collaboration with the British Royal Air Force Red Arrows Acrobatic Team the car was air-lifted by helicopter in Solihull, where Jaguar’s manufacturers is located and carried along the Thames to Tower Bridge. The car continued its trip on a boat to later on hit the Earls Court, the home of 14 Jaguar debuts since 1935, where it was escorted by two 1960’s Mark II Jaguar Police Cars and welcomed by the 3,000 excited VIP guests.

jaguar7 — Jaguar XE on its way to Earls Court

The show was narrated by English actor, John Hannah and included a star-studded performance lineup including Emeli Sande, The Kaiser Chiefs, Eliza Doolittle, the Royal Ballet, members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Max Milner from The Voice.

David Gandy, Damian Lewis and David Blakeley

What so special about the cutting-edge £30,000 XE sports car is the aluminum-intensive materials used to build the car, making it lightweight, stiff and sleek profile. The aluminum-lighter body makes the car more potential-fuel conscious, which in turn comes in line with efficiency regulations. Other carmakers such as Ford have chosen to use nearly all aluminum metal body in its most profitable vehicle, F150. The fact is aluminum when combined with small amounts of other metals to form and alloy it is actually just as strong as steel.

Highly aerodynamic and powerful due to it six cylinder motor, Jaguar XE generates 450 pounds-feet of torque, allowing it to go from zero to 100 km/h in less than 5 seconds and hit an electronically limited maximum speed of 155 mph. The XE car has a luxurious interior and advanced infotainment system including an eight-inch touchscreen and a clear graphical interface.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of aluminum sheet (aluminum plate) and other parts widely used in the manufacturing of automobiles. To find out more about us, please visit our Website, WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21, Tradekey or directly at sales@shanghaimetal.com.

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Source and pictures: trendhunter.com, jaguarmena.com, liverpoolecho.co.uk, sgcarmart.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor