Portable modular hotel room Hotello

There’s nothing like hitting the open road and setting off for destinations as yet undecided, nothing but your clothes and a sense of adventure in tow. But most of us lack the ability or the inclination to simply wander, not knowing where we will sleep that night. The Hotello portable hotel room could be an answer for road warriors, business travelers, and disaster victims alike.

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Portable modular hotel room with box
Portable modular hotel room in box

The Hotello is a portable room that is completely contained in a suitcase. It has everything you need to spend a comfortable night or block out the sounds around you as you get some work done. Its trunk-like exterior is equipped with small wheels and contains a desk, stool, lamp, locker, shelf and bed. A metal structure supports a sound-absorbing curtain that helps to block out the outside world.

Portable modular hotel room curtain
Portable modular hotel room privacy

Designed by Roberto De Luca and Antonio Scarponi, Hotello was meant to be used as a modular office space to fit inside vast urban lofts. The tiny 6 ft X 6 ft X 6ft room would allow empty lofts to be segmented into private areas for many people – no architects or adding of walls required. Likewise, it could be used as a temporary sleeping room just about anywhere.

Portable modular hotel room illustration

But there is a more serious side to Hotello. In a disaster situation when many people lose their homes or are forced to evacuate, Hotello could provide victims with a secure, private place to stay temporarily. Because the modular room is simple to transport, hundreds could be deployed quickly and easily to where they’re needed.

Portable modular hotel room closed

The 20th century left vast, abandoned spaces in our cities – warehouses, factories, military barracks have been built and abandoned in a relatively short time. Now, the contemporary city is elaborating new strategies to re-inhabit these empty shells. Designed in collaboration with visual artist Roberto DeLuca for the swiss firm das Konzert, ‘Hotello’, the four sqm unit is conceived to temporarily inhabit the contemporary city’s empty lofts. Packed into a trunk, the portable space contains all the necessary elements needed to work and rest. It consists of a metal structure that supports a translucent and sound absorbent curtain. The volume can also be combined and aggregated in different configurations”