Dasparkhotel is a series of tubes

Dasparkhotel (The Park Hotel) is, literally, a series of tubes. Constructed from repurposed sewer pipes, each tiny room offers a double bed, storage space, a light, and the fun of an inside that is very nearly outside. Nearby are shared toilets, showers, a bar and coffee shop. [via Laughing Squid]

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Max

I couldn’t figure out the little window in the door until I saw the numeric keypad attached to the bit sticking out from side of the pipe. Looks designed to catch your bag as you enter. 10/10 for oddest door latch.
And : They need to pave (or something better than grass) outside the front door.
- elix
  
  That’s what I noticed immediately. Bring your gumboots if you’re in a season with even a little bit of rain.
  
  That being said, I’d still stay there. Looks like a cozy little place for backpacking and the like.
dragonfrog

Also of interest – it’s operating on a “pay as you wish” basis.

http://www.dasparkhotel.net/parkhotel/index.php (I won’t attempt a translation as my German is pretty rusty).
- Little John
  
  No translation needed if you click on the link to the English version.
  
  Spolier: One of these (Bernepark) is in Germany, and the one shown (Ottensheim) is in Austria.
HenryPootel

Is that a puddle just outside the door?
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo
  
  maybe the bathrooms weren’t “nearby” enough… :O
  - http://www.facebook.com/MJTUK Mark J Thompson
    
    @facebook-100002601661770:disqus - you should check out this book that a friend of mine made. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/921217
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo

oh, i’d love to live in an enlarged version of this, perhaps of multiple tubes connected at angles to make a whole house with kitchen, living room, et cetera. would go well with the post-apocalyptic fixation my husband and i have!
- afims
  
  On a similar line, I remember hearing about something like that(although much more expensive) – on TV a while back. It consists connectible living chambers made of fiberglass that are designed to be placed underground and have flexible connection stairs and hallways. Here’s the site http://www.bomb-shelter.net/.
  
  Apparently, (from what I remember from the show) they have a lot of clients in the Washington D.C. area, for some mysterious reason. :)
travtastic

Part of me hopes that those are really well-anchored to the ground, and part of me doesn’t.
http://profiles.google.com/neil.sorenson Neil Sorenson

Those be some ghetto hobbit holes.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo
  
  hobbit trailer park?
- Spriggan_Prime
  
  That’s exactly what I thought when I saw these!
ChicagoD

“a series of tubes”

And they didn’t call it the Interwebs hotel? For shame.
dculberson

One hopes that they are *unused* repurposed sewer pipes.
sideshow bill

My chances of getting there to experience this are just a pipe dream….
Brainspore

If you’re someone who rolls over a lot in their sleep you might wake up in a different part of the park than where you started.
- http://twitter.com/andreas_strauss andreas strauss
  
  9.5 tonns !!! noone will roll you anywhere !!!
Toxa

Hate when people focus just on being “creative” and build up something completely impractical…
- http://twitter.com/andreas_strauss andreas strauss
  
  like when people comment and dont even have serious look at what the thing is about !!!
Andrew Singleton

Alright. Let’s see somebody stateside do better on the creativity department.

Because the gauntlet just got thrown down.
- ChicagoD
  
  Do shipping containers repurposed to housing count? Because the shipping container is a U.S. innovation.
  - digi_owl
    
    Funny enough, a Dutch company seems to have specialized in turning shipping containers into housing.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Trent-Baker/100000123865597 Trent Baker
  
  No, really it is impractical, because it would be very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Concrete is not an insulator. In fact you probably really would be better off sleeping under a bridge, because then at least you would have a bit of air circulation.
  - cdh1971
    
    Perhaps in the form shown this is impractical for more than camping. But with using hardware store concrete sealer on the interior and/or exterior, and some sort of lightweight foam insulation – can even be recycled – this might make something more long-term. Alternatively, maybe there is some sort of paint-like coating that could replace my idea of the foam insulation and concrete sealer. All depends on climate of course. Maybe under a tree in some climates? Cheers!
    - cdh1971
      
      Forgot to say…air circulation is easy – it just depends on how the ends of the pipes are capped.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Trent-Baker/100000123865597 Trent Baker
      
      Sure, maybe. But then your costs are gonna go up and the actual room size decreases. Next you are gonna say they should use some space age insulation. See costs.
      - cdh1971
        
        In regards to costs, these pipes, which looks brand-new to me, are not cheap and transporting them isn’t either. If you have the means to buy brand-new pipe and transport it, especially in this sort of terrain, I don’t think a bit low-profile insulation is going to matter much as a percentage of the final cost.
        
        It looks like the point of these short-duration-rental-tubes is along the lines of a hip place to camp – not some sort of low-cost housing, although I know this was discussed.
Blaze Curry

Wow, I SO want one of those now.
Andrew Singleton

*rereads* Pay as you please?

Interesting. Given it’s low accommodation probably low on maintenance I could see that working. However here I’d say you’d have health inspectors all over you if you tried it.

I’d still stay there, at least once.

Eh. Who’s up for repurposing a bloc of storage units as housing?
Sure Neil Stephenson thought of it first but has it been done?
Antinous / Moderator

Thousands of unemployed workers and their families lived in makeshift
encampments throughout California in the 1930s. One such village was
near downtown Oakland where out-of-work residents lived in huge concrete
sewer pipes being stored above ground. Each six-foot section of
concrete pipe became a “homeless shelter” for one of the nearly two
hundred unemployed who lived there. Residents covered the ends of their
pipes with burlap or cardboard, and survived on mulligan stew made from
discarded vegetables scavenged from nearby grocery wholesalers. They
called their village “Miseryville,” but the press dubbed it “Pipe City.”

http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/timeline/chapter9/003.html
- Andrew Singleton
  
  Holy rap. Didn’t know that. Great historical find. Dankee.
- elix
  
  That is a very interesting chunk of history. I had no idea. Thanks for making my day more interesting, Antinous. :D
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    It’s been done in the last few decades as well, for the urban homeless.
Stephen M

I like the idea, wondering how cold and damp it is in reality though.
Alan

Repurpsosed sewage drains, huh? If only these walls could talk!
willyboy

What would make these even better would be lambo(scissor) doors….
AviSolomon

Makes for poignant contrast with whole families crammed into these in 70s Bombay (I would wander into them as a kid):
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fC40g5OrxXI/TGUxWL1EmSI/AAAAAAAAAdo/wUQJACXsqqk/s320/25india1.jpg
fnc

I’m intrigued, but climate control’s probably going to be a bitch in there. It would still be better than living in a not-yet-repurposed sewer pipe I guess.
Blaze Curry

That’s weird…last time I checked concrete that had been mixed properly had a massive temperature resistance level, almost approaching cheap ceramic.
That means it changes temperature very slowly, IE why concrete stays hot to the touch long after the sun has set and cool long after the sun has risen.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Hemingway/1461183781 Stephen Hemingway

Just a little clarification on the “sewer” nature of the pipe – what you’re seeing in the picture is “RCP” or reinforced concrete pipe. At least in the United States, it is only ever used for rain water runoff in storm sewers (as opposed to sanitary sewers). Concrete wouldn’t be particularly well suited to sanitary usage due to the caustic gases associated with the slurry of human excrement that is raw sewage. In any case, I’ve seen more than my fair share of RCP, and I’m willing to bet that pipe was fresh from the factory, not recycled. It’s in way too good of condition to have been previously buried. That being said, this is very cool. And to comment on the insulation factor discussed above, I can only say from experience that RCP tends to remain relatively cool internally, even in the Florida summer sun.
E T

Hope they provide an emergency exit.
snowmentality

That’s what we can do with the series of tubes that has literally been abandoned on an empty roadside lot here! The land and the pipes have a legal owner, so the city can’t have them removed. The owner isn’t doing anything with either land or pipes. Homeless people are already camping in them — maybe we should fix them up to actually be decent shelter.

My elementary school also had a series of concrete tubes of different sizes as its main playground equipment. You couldn’t do much with the smallest ones, but the medium and large ones (not nearly so large as these — the largest ones could fit a first-grader inside) made good forts and climbing/vaulting equipment.