Travelodge Hotel changes the landscape of building | ft.com
The biggest hotel to be constructed from shipping containers opens in London this week. Travelodge, the budget hotel chain, imported the containers from China – complete with bathrooms, plastering and air conditioning units – then stacked them into a 300-room hotel near Heathrow in just three weeks. The steel modules are made by Verbus Systems, a London-based company that designs, manufactures and supplies what it calls a “Lego kit” for developers. Paul Rollett, director, believes Verbus can thrive even as recession ravages the “backward and grossly inefficient” global construction industry. “Our proposition is absolutely unique,” he says. Verbus supplies oversized shipping containers – as much as 5 metres wide – that are strong enough to build high-rise buildings anywhere in the world. It has provided a developer in Liverpool with two modules that came fully finished, with pillows fluffed on the bed.
