The work of a small Pawtucket building company to convert two shipping containers into a rugged, full-service health clinic for undeveloped regions of the world may now play a role in the disaster recovery in Haiti.

Containers to Clinics, a Boston-based nonprofit agency, worked with Stack Design Build, a Pawtucket-based building company, last fall on the prototype health clinic that can be dropped into remote regions and be self-sustaining with its own electricity and water.

Triton Containers Ltd. donated acontainer, as did Mini Warehousing Inc. Anshen + Allen, a Boston-based health care architecture firm, provided pro bono design work. And Stack Design Build contributed more design work and did the construction at cost.

Elizabeth Sheehan, founder of Containers to Clinics, originally intended to ship the new clinic to the Dominican Republic this month for use by a local health agency, but that plan fell through. Ever since Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, she has been talking to aid agencies to see how the clinic could be put to use.

She thinks the clinic, now stored in a warehouse outside Boston, has an 80 percent chance of being dispatched to Haiti, where so many buildings were destroyed. With the port in Haiti destroyed, the containers would have to be shipped by cargo plane.

“We are not big enough to do this by ourselves,” said Sheehan. “But we’re working with some big aid organizations. Within the next three to five days we should have some answers.”

The clinic is not the first shipping container project for Stack Design Build. The company is also using 32 recycled shipping containers to create a three-story building in Providence for artists and start-up businesses. The building is going up on the site of the former Harris Lumber yard, visible from Route 10.

Andrew W. Keating and Joshua Brandt, the principal owners of Stack Design Build, don’t want anyone to think that shipping containers are their only mode of work.

They have rebuilt a “green” house in Little Compton, and built a wood-frame house in Westport and a loft in Boston.

The two moved to Rhode Island to go to school. Brandt earned a degree in civil engineering at Brown University. Keating went to Williams and then Rhode Island School of Design.

They were working together for one of the region’s major commercial contractors in 2008 when they decided to go out on their own and focus on sustainable building projects that would also come with lower costs because they provided both the design and construction work. They have four full-time employees.

“We wanted to change the way construction projects are designed and executed,” says Keating. “There are huge inefficiencies between the design work and construction. We want to close that gap, to take a holistic approach.”

Starting their business just as the economy collapsed, they considered just another challenge.

“In terms of starting a company that doesn’t have a lot of overhead, we figure if we can make it now we can succeed anytime,” said Keating. “We learned how to stay lean, how to stay flexible and how to keep our price point down. We think in a recession people are more willing to try something new and different.”

The two work and live in lofts in the old Lebanon Knitting Mill in downtown Pawtucket, enjoying brick walls, high ceilings and rooms large enough to allow for the storage of bicycles and surfboards as well as desks and computers.

They recalled that Sheehan came to them several months ago for the clinic project, and she needed the work done in 10 weeks.

“We set out to do things that are innovative, sustainable and socially needed,” said Brandt. “And we happen to know a lot about shipping containers.”

They like using containers –– there is a worldwide surplus and it’s a great way to recycle materials.

Sheehan liked working with the two builders because she said they are innovative and totally understood her goal. “This couldn’t be a high-tech spaceship where one part breaks and you can’t use it anymore.”

She said they used heat reflective paints, solar fans and photovoltaic powered lights.

Now, she said, it’s not a question of “will the clinic go to Haiti. It’s when. It’s a matter of transporting it.”

For more on Stack Design Build, go to: http://www.stackdb.com.

For more information on Containers to Clinics, including news videos, go to: http://www.containers2clinics.org. For a video of the clinic construction, look under “What we do” and “The Model.”

plord@projo.com

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Containers to Clinics, and did not include Mini Warehousing Inc. as a donor.