Property’s Morning Obsession: The Adaptive Reuse Portable Hotel Room

Can’t find a hotel room in New York’s theater district for less than $400 per weekend night? Sorry, we can’t help with that. This hotel room isn’t the solution. It is, however, an incredibly stylish response to the glut of abandoned and vacant buildings in the city–and all over the world.

Created by Swiss designer Antonio Scarponi and Italian artist Roberto de Luca, Hotello looks like a steamer trunk on the outside. But when it’s opened up and unfolded, it has a bed, a desk, a lamp, a curtain and a closet–which is actually the steamer trunk itself. From the Daily Mail UK:

Mr Scarponi who works for the Conceptual Devices agency, said: ‘The 20th Century left vast, abandoned, spaces in our cities. “Warehouses, factories, military barracks have been built and abandoned in a relatively short period of time. Now, the contemporary city is elaborating new strategies to re-inhabit these empty shells. Hotello is a 2m x 2m x 2m module, designed for adaptive reuse in this kind of urban environment, one in which interior design is one of the most important tools for the regeneration of urban spaces.”

The Hotello is only conceptual right now, so Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and other cities with vacant buildings will have to wait.

• The ‘hotel room’ that fits in your luggage (just don’t expect a concierge service)

Each morning we start the day with Property’s Morning Obsession—anything from staging to woodwork to the fragment of a building. Want to submit your morning obsession? Send us an email.