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What’s the difference between sleeping in a concrete drainage pipe and sleeping in a hotel room?
About 50 bucks a night.
That, and a queen-size bed, some privacy curtains, and a pledge of “some real kick-ass events” to keep you happy.
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TuboHotel |
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The cozy culvert beds boast "really Tubo-Soft" sheets, a light and a fan. Bathhouses are separate.
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That’s the pitch behind TuboHotel, a spirited enterprise in the “magic village” of Tepoztlan, Morelos, about 45 minutes south of Mexico City.
The hotel, which opened in 2010, is an arrangement of recycled concrete drainage pipes—rechristened “tubes”—fashioned into small sleeping rooms that are about eight feet in diameter and just under 11½ feet long. The drainpipes are stacked in pyramids accessible by a metal staircase.
‘Tubo-licious’
Each tube includes a bed with “really Tubo-Soft” sheets, desk light, fan and underbed storage, the hotel says.
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MODOT (left); Dasparkhotel (right) |
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Concrete culverts (left) have been reclaimed for hospitality before. Germany's Dasparkhotel (right) opened in 2006.
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Rates start at 300 pesos a night ($22.88 US) for two people in a ground-level tube up to 700 pesos a night ($53.40) for a “top-of-the-pyramid tube for those who live in the clouds.”
Hotel owners say the tubes are warm—“quite thermic,” in fact, “maintaining their comfortable, almost Tubo-licious temperature during the day and night.” The complex boasts a “celebrity chef” and two bathhouses.
The facility was designed by T3 Arc and patterned after Germany’s Dasparkhotel, which opened in 2006. That facility also used recycled concrete pipes for hotel rooms.
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TuboHotel |
TuboHotel has charmed environmentalists for its reclaimed materials and environmental policies. (One guest’s online mention of “polystyrene” dishes drew a fast rebuke from the owner, who noted that the facility uses biodegradable paper cups and plates.)
And while the provenance of the concrete culverts-turned-tubes isn’t clear, the resourcefulness is undeniable. Construction took only three months.
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