When we think of small living expertise, we think of NASA, submarine engineers, or tiny house enthusiasts. Hotel designers don't come to mind, but they ought to: Like these two Dutch architects managed to wedge nearly everything you'd need to live comfortably into a wood mechanism the size of a walk-in closet.
You can chose from 270 rooms at Amsterdam's new Volkshotel, but nine of those rooms are "special," designed as one-offs by architects and designers chosen for the job. One of the newest designs is this wild piece of work by the Dutch designers Jos Blom and Jasper Eustace. The duo packed all of the necessities of a standard hotel room into a tiny, wood-encased space in order to leave the room spare and open.
Inside the green-striped room, Blom and Eustace have built what looks like a cross between a non-euclidean walk-in closet and a pod hotel from hell. In reality, it's more like an experiment—a jigsaw puzzle of working parts that are packed together in the most efficient way possible. On one side, there's a full bed. On another, a mirror, standing shower, and toilet pod. On another, there's a set of narrow stairs leading up to the second floor, where a full-sized bathtub and succulent garden await.
Who is this room for? "The room for the intrepid adventurers," the hotel explains. "Sleep in a hollow bay, shower under a waterfall and bath on top of a mountain among a cactus garden." If you love all-you-can-eat shrimp buffets and California king mattresses on your vacations, this might not be the room for you. But for anyone else, you can book the room here.
Images by Arend Loerts courtesy of Jasper Eustace.