New Hotel Made Out Of Shipping Containers

A new 100-room Travelodge is being built by fitting 88 shipping containers together. Normal a hotel of that size may cost £5million to build, but this shipping container version would be £4.5million, and take 30 weeks to construct, instead of 40.

The, West London hotel, will be the world's first recyclable Travelodge, made of 86 high strength steel modules resembling shipping containers, stacked on top of each other and securely bolted together. When finished, the giant Lego style structure will look and feel no different to the budget chain's other 330 hotels in the UK, Ireland and Spain.

The Verbus modules are then shipped from China with the bathrooms, plasterboard walls and the 'first fix' of electrical points already in place. Once installed at the site, windows are fitted, the modules are decorated and furnished, and then the exterior of the building is cladded.

The unique structure means that the hotel can also be taken apart and rebuilt again at speed, offering the prospect of short-term hotels for different needs.

Paul Harvey, property and development director of Travelodge, said"Although it may not look like a hotel right now, the containers will be fitted out to include everything we offer in the rooms at a traditionally-built hotel - a comfortable bed, en-suite bathroom, wardrobe, mirror, desk and chair, right down to the plasma TV and free tea and coffee making facilities. You simply won't be able to tell the difference."

Verbus Systems, a joint business venture between consulting engineers, Buro Happold and constructor, George & Harding has developed its unique modular construction system over the last four years. The manufacture of the modules has been outsourced to the global market leaders in the production of shipping containers in China.