Shipping containers have recently made their way into the spotlight because of their sustainability and eco-friendliness as a building material and they’ve been used in everything from houses to work spaces. The latest in modern, environmentally-conscious building with these huge metal containers is the ContainHotel, which is modeled with three recycled shipping containers and portable.
The hotel’s first location is in the Czech Republic on a surf campsite alongside the Elbe riverbank, where beachgoers can walk right up to their hotel, store their surfboards and equipment in the storage room, take a shower downstairs, and walk upstairs to their room.
Though the mobile hotel is literally blue, it is metaphorically as green as it gets. When using recycled materials, like the shipping containers and finished birch plywood inside every room, it reduces greenhouse gases because typical building materials expend carbon dioxide during the process of creation. The bathrooms in the downstairs shipping container use water-saving taps that hook up to an inbuilt water reservoir and the toiletries are all biodegradable. The hotel saves on electricity with an insulated roof and large awnings to keep the rooms hot or cold depending on the local weather. The entire building is placed on railroad sleepers so as to literally leave as minimal of a footprint as possible, no matter where it travels.
The architecture company that designed the hotel, Artikul Architects, said that the design was inspired by and pulled from “modern nomadism, maritime beach atmosphere and naval themes.”
With the compact but open and airy rooms, blue themes, wooden ceilings and furniture, and minimalist layout, it certainly gives the feeling of being a nomad and hanging out near the beach. Nomadism has become a trending lifestyle recently and minimalism is key to lightweight and simple traveling.
With five small rooms and one large room downstairs that accommodates 4 guests, the mobile hotel can house up to 13 people at one time, giving it an intimate feel. This design gives visitors and locals alike an opportunity to experience a new kind of accommodation that is as unique as it is environmentally-friendly, and we can’t wait to see where it’s going to pop up next.