Budget hotel chain Travelodge recently opened their first hotel constructed out of recycled shipping containers in Uxbridge, UK. The containers were fitted out with drywall, lights and bathrooms in China and shipped to the UK. The construction photos show the steel racking system that holds each container in place. You’ll notice a family resemblance to the Freitag shop in Zurich and work from Lot-ek. The company says the containers are fully reusable and can be disassembled and shipped off again.
The actual use of containers in a hotel application is interesting and surely curiosity would motivate a lot of guests to try a room out for a night for the unique experience. So it’s puzzling to see why the entire building was clad in cheap looking brick and stucco to make it look like any other generic hotel. Just with very small windows. There’s nothing about the finished design that communicates the innovative way it was built.
Verbus Systems-the engineering and construction company, describes the building as a revolution for temporary accommodation at festivals and major sporting events because of the speed in which it can be taken apart and reassembled. There is also a cost savings of 10 per cent compared to construction of a similar sized building using traditional methods.
Travelodge expects to build half of it’s future hotels using the container construction method. They’ve already begun construction on a site adjacent to Heathrow airport scheduled to open later this year.
[via WAN]
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I’ve lived in Uxbridge Travelodge. Quite reasonabel price. Couldn’t figure out it was made by container. I think it will be a trend to use prefab method to make budget/chain hotel, especially in London,Paris,Madrid…I heard there is a company ” Agson Engineers ” making high class prefabricated container modular hotel in China. See http://containerhotel.blogspot.com/
It is really amazing product, but if intergrated with Solar panel, that’ll be perfect.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:58 am