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Micro hotels minimise space

Micro hotels minimise space

By Steven Willis on 4th August, 2010

Small hotel rooms can be a commonly-experienced part of travel, especially when staying in city centres on a low budget.

Most of us when visiting a new city are there to experience the place itself, which means getting out and about at every opportunity, and only using the hotel room as a place to sleep and shower. So, from a practical perspective, it's a sensible option for many of us. After all, do you really need a spacious hotel room filled with every possible amenity? Small hotel rooms can make sense financially too, as with such small spaces to maintain the hotel operator is likely to charge a lot less than for a large suite equivalent.

Japan leads the way when it comes to miniaturising the hotel experience to the smallest possible conclusion. Pioneered in Toyko during the 1980s in response to sky-rocketing property prices and an increasing scarcity of development space in the city, micro hotels soon left the realms of novelty to answer a very real demand. Since then, the concept has become ever-more popular, with many options now available. Tokyo's tiny pod-like 'capsule' rooms are perhaps the most extreme variation of the micro hotel, with enclosed spaces no bigger in length and width than a single bed and headroom no more than just an outstretched arm. Crawling into a capsule room epitomises the micro hotel concept. While capsule rooms might be too minimalist and claustrophobic for some, they neatly demonstrate how little space is actually needed to comfortably meet our needs.

Decorated Shed garden buildings don't go to the extreme lengths of Japan's micro hotel rooms, but they do represent a super-efficient use of space and proportion.

 

Photograph copyright 2010 @ http://www.dezeen.com/2010/03/09/bubbles-by-dream-and-fly/


Category:  Architecture and Design

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