Shoreditch is a vibrant, up-and-coming district in London’s East End. Its gentrification is nearly complete, thanks in part to the opening of the Shoreditch High Street train station in 2010. The station is an extended concrete structure. Its closed, almost brutal-looking facade runs nearly parallel to Bethnal Green Road, a main traffic artery of the East End. There are plans to develop the strip of unused land between the concrete wall and the road, together with the larger former railway tract on the southern side of the new station. However, as this project, encompassing as it does 4.7 hectares of land, will remain in the planning stages for several more years, an interim solution for the roadside strip was needed.What emerged was a shopping mall of a new stripe, perfectly suited to its surroundings. With its creative, youthful vibe, it is far more evocative of places such as London’s Camden Market. Sixty-one recycled shipping containers, painted black and placed side-by-side at street level, form a shop window frontage of about 105 metres in length. The uniform white lettering on the shops is small and discreet. In contrast, the sign declaring “Boxpark” in six-foot letters on one of the upper-level containers broadcasts its purpose far afield. Most of the shops are not the familiar kind, either, but quirky, largely unknown brands. The interior design runs the gamut from crudely functional to perfectly styled and artistically staged. On the upper level, one finds art galleries, an Amnesty International shop, and restaurants and cafes with large wooden roof terraces.