Outside the Box, Inside the Tube

Remember camping trips, when you’d flip your roommate for the top bunk? Well, the architects at T3arc are taking that concept to a whole other level. At some point in the past, they had to think on their feet for a cultural-center-cum-artsy-cafe project which badly needed a bathroom, not an eco-eyesore, and came up with upgrading a concrete tube (2.44m in diameter and 3.50m in length) to fit those requirements. Now, with a customer commissioning the swift and cheap construction of a tourist trap-wannabe hotel, the experience had stacked up nicely in their resume, and it was time to think bigger – in stacks of three, to be more exact.

Sited in Tepoztlán, Mexico, or rather, its environs, Tubohotel provides its guests with not only an unconventional type of lodging, but also a view onto a gorgeous tree-lined clearing. Surrounded by quizzically gnarled greenery, the unusual-looking hotel consists of tubular rooms made out of concrete (tubocretos), placed on top of each other in groups of three or side by side, presumably to cater to those who’re afraid of heights. Still, I’d imagine the vista of Sierra del Tepozteco that this hotel commands is better enjoyed from on high.

Exploring the indoors, so to say, takes all of a second: the tube-rooms are fitted with a bed right through the middle and the privacy of the dweller is pretty much non-existent. There are frosted glass panes, spliced together with regular see-through windows, so I’d say the “hotel” is more suited to youngsters than vacationers in general. It looks to me like a perfect alternative to camping and would definitely fill to its 20-room capacity in a jiffy if, say, a music festival were to be organized close by. Getting back to the main issue though, how would you rig the coin toss, top bunk or bottom?

(Source: ArchDaily.com)