Royal Wolf, Australia’s largest supplier of shipping containers has ‘reinvented’ the shipping container to create business success.
Showing that even the most rigid of products, such as 20 and 40 foot containers that prefer a muddy-red colour, can be re-imagined when a company needs to adapt to the market and when a society comes calling for solutions. Royal Wolf’s containers have been deployed for use as university student accommodation, a food market village and most recently, as crisis accommodation for the homeless in Tasmania.
Taking a hit when the mining bubble burst, Royal Wolf had to rethink their business. To diversify, they turned down the dial on camp accommodation and increased it on worker accommodation at civil construction sites, building a niche.
CEO Neil Littlewood says “As a company it helped us learn about ourselves and what we could do.”
“Most people have this view that it is just this steel container, but what you can do inside that is quite interesting. People all over the globe have come up with some sensational solutions.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Royal Wolf was instrumental in providing emergency response testing stations, and, in Geelong, the modification of a container into a visitors’ pod at an aged care facility. The design team have about 15 different configurations for pandemic response buildings.
The company’s largest long-term solution project has been the 85-container build in 2019 for 180 live-in students at the University of Tasmania’s Sandy Bay campus. As a result of that project, the State Government commissioned Royal Wolf to supply 18 single-person pods for Hobart’s Bethlehem House, a homeless accommodation service for men, and ten larger shelters for the Hobart Women’s Shelter.
Mr Littlewood says the local team in Hobart found a sense of pride in being able to be part of the solution.
“To me it is about understanding what governments, councils and clients are looking for; analysing that; providing an innovative and individual solution for them; and then delivering on that in a timely manner. That is our core function,” Mr Littlewood continues.
For more information on how Royal Wolf is helping to put a roof over the head of those who need it most, visit royalwolf.com.au/crisis-accommodation
