Feature: Recycled containers, buses converted into artists' studios in Lisbon

In the heart of Portuguese capital, 14 maritime shipping containers and two recycled buses have been given a new life at the Carris railway museum.

Here, local and international artists work on their projects and gather once a week over brunch to mingle and discover ways to help each other out.

"There is a strong energy here for everyone to create new things," project co-founder Mariana Duarte Silva told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Current artists-in-residence include DJ Glue and writer Pedro Miguel Rocha, who set up the television series Contentor 13, delving into the lives and works of 13 Portuguese writers.

The artists pay 150 euros (about 160 U.S. dollars) per month for a desk, which includes commodities like air conditioning and an acoustic studio. All shipping containers have a large window and maintain a comfortable temperature both in winter and summer.

A bus from the public transportation company, Carris, which was otherwise going to be sold or be put in the company's museum, has been turned into a cafeteria, and another is planned to be used as a meeting room.

"This is also the base of the project in London: to reuse equipment that had no life," Mariana said, about a similar project she was involved with there.

Village Underground Lisboa was founded in 2014 after Mariana spent a couple of years in London working at Village Underground in the trendy Shoreditch neighborhood where studios made out of former Tube carriages. When she returned to Lisbon, she decided to bring back a part of that vibrant multicultural vibe with her and create the same idea here.

"I really liked the experience of working in an original space like this. In London, I worked inside a train carriage, and liked that every day was a different day, with new people and a creative atmosphere.

"My business partner in London (Tom Foxcroft) wanted to start to expand the project to other cities, so we thought it would be a good idea to set something up in Lisbon."

Though new co-working spaces are now opening all the time in Lisbon, Mariana said there was no place like Village Underground in Lisbon when she came back in 2009.

"I wanted to create a creative hub of new artists here, and give them a physical working space so they could get exposure and also take their work outside the village."

Mariana came back to Portugal in the wake of the financial crisis which she said partly explains why the project took around five years to get off the ground. But she said that on the other hand, it meant artists and entrepreneurs were starting to look at their businesses through a new lens.

"There were more unemployed people finding new opportunities, and they needed a place like this with an accessible rent where they could work."

She fought hard to find local sponsors and finally formed a partnership with the Lisbon City Council, which also sponsored the project. Other sponsors include Portuguese telecommunications company PT and coffee brand Nescafe.

Mariana managed to start the project up while raising two children, which she admitted was tiring, but assured that motherhood didn't get in the way of her life project.

"Village Underground and babies, they came together. So they're compatible," she said, laughing.

In fact, Village Underground is family-friendly, organizing events for both adults and children. Village Underground is also working on incorporating a "Village Yard" in collaboration with architecture collective Projecto Warehouse, consisting of a place where people can relax outside in a greener atmosphere to balance out the space's industrial feel. Enditem