ImaginativePRO Blog

BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT ASKS 'LOVE' MOTEL OWNERS TO CONVERT THEIR ROOMS IN PREPARATION FOR WORLD CUP AND OLYMPIC GAMES

An expected shortage of accommodation has seen hotel prices already rocket to over 500 per cent.

World Cup fans heading for Brazil next year could find they are booking into sex motels as government tourism bosses look for ways to tackle the expected shortage in hotel accommodation.

The owners of “love” motels are being asked to convert their traditionally downmarket rooms into mid-market affordable lodgings in response as Ministry of Tourism research shows that hotel prices have already rocketed to over 500 per cent.

Motels rising to the challenge are undergoing fundamental changes including switching off 24-hour erotic channels and installing internet access. Some are even changing the M to the H.

The traditional short-stay accommodation, with drive-in bookings for a few hours at a time, is being standardised in-line with hotel reservations. The aphrodisiac finger-food menu, normally served through a hatch in the room to maintain privacy, is being phased out as the industry dispenses with rudimentary kitchen crew and hires chefs to provide a breakfast menu.

Antonio Morilha, director of the Brazilian Association of Motels (ABMotéis) told The Independent.

“We are trying to establish a new class of motel that provides a quality service and hospitality that rivals traditional hotels.  We are also working on a classification system with stars, similar to what already exists for hotels and we’re waiting for government approval.”

The organisation is also drawing on the services of leading architects to help owners improve their interior look. Out is the typically seedy flock red wallpaper and old-fashioned furniture with round beds and in is a cleaner more sophisticated décor.

Some motels keen to hold on to the signature mirrors-on-the-ceiling look are being advised to think twice if they want to qualify for children on the premises. Brazilian law prohibits minors in these establishments.

According to ABMotéis, the daily charge for motels is half the price of hotels in a similar category. However, analysts predict prices may radically change with the upgrade.

COMMENTARY:    The Shalimar love hotel located in Leblon, a very upscale and swanky neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, is going family-friendly.  Workers strip mirrored paneling off the ceiling, as another pries up the fiberglass shell of a whirlpool bath. A third man takes a sledgehammer to a life-size statue of Venus de Milo posing topless with a swirl of plaster robes hanging from her waist.

The Shalimar Hotel 'Shalimar' suite (Click Image To Enlarge)

Like about a third of the city’s 180 hotels that rent rooms by the hour, mostly for amorous rendezvous, the Shalimar is trading its oversized round beds and bondage-ready chairs for proper couches, functional desks and other businesslike furnishings. The goal is reinvention as a standard pay-by-the-day tourist hotel.

With the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament in June 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games arriving in this seaside city (and other cities), local officials are scrambling to solve a chronic hotel bed shortage so severe that during a UN conference here last year, the mayor had to appeal to residents to open their apartments to visitors.

The Shalimar Hotel 'Medieval' suite complete with chains (Click Image To Enlarge)

The plan? Slash property taxes for love hotels, known as “motels” in Portuguese, that agree to tone down the decor and free up 90 percent of their rooms for the tens of thousands of visitors expected to flood the city.

Antonio Cerqueira, a vice president of the Rio chapter of the ABIH hotel owners association, Brazil’s largest, said. 

“Motels have all the know-how to be able to put people from around the world up in style.  What throws people is really just the decoration.”

The Shalimar Hotel 'Ipanema' suite (Click Image To Enlarge)

With only 25,000 beds, or just half the estimated 50,000 needed for the Olympics, authorities here hope to add about another 6,000 beds through motel conversions, Cerqueira said. New hotels with another 14,500 beds are also in the works, he added.

By comparison, the last Olympic city, London, has some 110,000 hotel beds.

Brazil’s love hotels are virtual temples of kitsch and a longtime staple in the world’s largest Catholic country, where young people have tended to remain at home until marriage.

Giant, coin-operated vibrating beds compete for prominence with bubbling baths built for two; mirrors proliferate, covering nearly every surface, and condoms and other sex-related paraphernalia share space in minibars with cans of beer and chocolate bars. A maze of towering walls or dense shrubbery shrouds the motels from prying eyes, with individual, covered parking spots that lead directly into rooms. Many offer remote check-in that doesn’t require looking anyone in the eye. Theme rooms, sexed-up variations on medieval, swinging sixties, or tropical paradise motifs, abound.

Teacher Paula Moura said motels were an institution in Rio’s cultural landscape, and would be sorely missed if they disappeared. She said she used to go at least once a month with her boyfriend.

She said.  

“We’d dress up, look for different ambiances.  Plus you don’t have mirrors like that at home!”

Now that she’s unattached, she likes them because they’re a neutral space, she said.

She said.

“You don’t bring someone you don’t know well into your house, and you don’t expose yourself by going over to their house.”

Removing the sexy flair and giving the rooms a more neutral cast cost $15,000-$25,000 per unit, said Cerqueira, an investment that stands to be partially offset by a 40 percent reduction in city property taxes through 2019.

Motel operators are still in talks with city officials over the finer points, but Cerqueira said he expects the deal to be inked by the end of the month.

Love hotels in Brazil have been on the decline since the 1990s, with most struggling to reach 50 percent occupancy. Conventional Rio hotels regularly hit an 80 percent rate and completely sell out at peak times such as New Year’s and Carnival, said Cerqueira. Plus, because love hotel rooms must be cleaned and sterilized after each occupancy, which generally doesn’t last more than a handful of hours, they’re more expensive to operate than conventional hotels.

Cerqueira said. 

“Mores have been getting more liberal, and young couples who a generation ago would have had no choice but go to a motel are now welcome to stay at home.”

Most motel clients are married couples visiting on a lark, business travelers looking to save money by renting by the hour and the sector’s perennial staple: adulterers.

Decorator Fabiola Brandao has been working her way through the Shalimar renovations room by room over the past four years, revamping 25 of the hotel’s 61 rooms to date.

Brandao said.

“We usually do two or three rooms at a time, and kind of try to block off the area where the work is being done.”

Still, no matter how discreetly workers attempt to work, the banging of jackhammers and pop of nail guns often prove impossible to muffle.

Brandao said.  

“In those circumstances, we say to the client, ‘Can we upgrade you to a better room, with a better view?' And then we send up a complementary bottle of champagne. It usually does the trick.”

She added.  

"The new rooms are the kind of place where you can stay for more than an hour without running away screaming.” 

Toth the renovated and old-style rooms range in price from $34-$190 for a 12-hour rental, the preferred length of stay for business travelers.

The Shalimar’s management is planning to overhaul nearly all the units ahead of the Olympics, leaving but a few theme rooms, like the iron chain-strewn medieval suite.

Motel operators hope the tourist gold rush brought by the World Cup and Olympics will last far after sports fans have left. Despite its world-famous Carnival, the city attracts around 3 million foreign visitors per year, only twice the number of tourists London typically receives in the month of August alone.

Cerqueira said, citing the examples of 1992 host city Barcelona and Sydney, where the 2000 games were held.   

“We’ve seen it happen before that hosting the Olympics really puts a city on the map.  Rio de Janeiro has so much to offer, the beach, the spectacular cityscape, and with everything that’s happening we can only expect for interest to grow. We’ll be ready for it.”

Wow.  LOL.   The fact that Brazil's government is converting love hotels into tasteful accommodations for tourists staying in Brazil during the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics says they have a crisis on their hands.   Anyone contemplating attending the World Cup or Olympics is faced with a serious dilemna.  Never mind that prices for practically everything will easily double or even triple during these events, but not knowing where you might have to stay, or having no choice in the matter, and having to pay sky high prices, is a nightmare situation.  

Courtesy of an article dated October 29, 2013 appearing in The Independent and an article dated February 18, 2013 appearing in The Courier News Online

HE HOBBIT HOUSE THAT IS RIGHT OUT OF A J.R.R. TOLKIEN 'LORD OF THE RINGS' FANTASY NOVEL, AND ITS FOR RENT IN MONTANA

Steve Michaels, proprietor of the Hobbit House, asks a reporter when he calls about his pet project.

“DO you have hairy feet?  Bilbo Baggins gets off on hairy feet. Hobbits have hairy feet. They also have hairy bellies. They eat about six times a day.”

If you are a J. R. R. Tolkien fan, this information is old news. But if its a new world your reaction is closer to,

“Hobbit? Short, some kind of elf, annoying. Bilbo? Bilious? Rocky Balboa?” 

And thanks to Mr. Michaels, you can spend the night in it. No need to bring slippers: a big hairy pair await you. Also a wizard’s hat, belonging to someone named Gandalf. How to get there? It’s a long, long journey, because wherever you live, it is not close.

Glorious August, the time for road trips. While it may seem that roadside America has been taken over by motel chains, one as sterile and uninspired as the next, this is not true: there are lots of rich and varied places to stay out there.

The Hobbit House, in northwest Montana, about a three-hour drive from Spokane, Wash., is a guesthouse. Number of units: one. But it is a large unit. The Web site, which the reporter studies before arriving, shows a 1,000-square-foot structure built into a hill, on a 20-acre site dotted with structures that range from small to perfect for squashing with your foot: a four-foot stump-shaped troll house, a few round-door hobbit houses with chimney pipes and several shoe-box-size fairy houses. 

The Hobbit House

View more documents from turk5555. 

Studying the pictures, the reporter has the sinking feeling that she will be spending the night at a miniature golf course. After arriving at the Hobbit House, this fear is quickly put to rest: there are no putting greens.

Mr. Michaels, who turns 63 this month and can be found at his own house across the road, is white-haired and as jolly as Santa, but with a much darker back story and some ambivalence about children. He makes his living as a broker of telephone answering businesses, running a company called TAS Marketing with his 59-year-old wife, Christine, who tends to practical matters like contracts.

But Mr. Michaels has also been many other things: a hypnotist; the author of a self-published self-help book called “How to Die With a Smile on Your Face”; something called a futurist, which seems to involve getting out of the city and arming yourself; and a llama rancher. He keeps four alpacas as pets; pilots what he calls his flying machine, a Buckeye Dream Machine-powered parachute; and gets about his 100-acre property in a Kubota RTV that resembles a hybrid golf cart and dump truck.

A HOBBIT, according to the literature, likes to be comfortable at home, and the guesthouse, shaped on the inside like an inverted bowl, is first class. Mr. Michaels charges $245 a night, and paid about $410,000 to build and furnish it.

There are granite counters in the kitchen, elaborate lighting and a Harmony audiovisual system. A gold ring, which figures prominently in hobbit lore, hangs from a rafter. The rustic wooden furniture is custom-made, and the headboards are embedded with the Hobbit House logo, a hobbit door with a red light — and on the headboards, it’s a real red light.

But what is a visit to the Hobbit House without a tour of the shire? Into the RTV we go, accompanied by Mr. Michaels’s dog, Libby, a collie-shepherd mix. Here is a tiny sod-roof house belonging to Frodo, a Baggins relation; there, in the trunk of a tree, is a mother-son fairy abode (complete with two doors). Not everything is hobbitically accurate: there is a two-foot-tall hairy-back frog, because Mr. Michaels figured that if hobbits were hairy, their frogs should be, too.

Mr. Michaels says, steering the cart toward the sod-covered roof of the life-size guesthouse. 

“And look. You can drive over the house, because it’s built into the ground. Right now, we’re 30 feet over your bedroom.”

Wahoo! Try that at the Best Western. The view of Mr. Michaels’s house across the road, beside the pond, is lovely, and there is an abundance of wildlife here, he says: they have seen coyote, elk, mountain lions, even a grizzly.

Does the wildlife ever damage those little structures?

Mr. Michaels says. 

“This spring we hauled almost a truckload of elk turd from the top of the Hobbit House.  On top of the house it’s nice and warm, and the grass comes in early, and they like to hang out there.”

Back at the guesthouse, we talk about the financial side of things. The Hobbit House was completed last fall, but the guest book shows only about 14 entries. How are they making a go of it?

Mr. Michaels says.  

“We’re not.  TAS Marketing is the way I make my money. This started out as a simple guesthouse, then my contractor’s son said, ‘Oh, it looks like a hobbit house.’ Then my imagination went wild. We read the book and watched the movies, and then we had to have a hobbit house, we had to have a troll house, we had to have the mushrooms. It’s all custom. I’ve got real rich taste.”

He later says.

“I have an addictive personality.”

What is the saga of this hobbit fan with the healing pyramid hanging from his neck, and from what exotic land did he emerge? Burlington, Vt., it turns out.

Mr. Michaels was the middle child of seven children, and his parents were strict and demanding. Also, they were poor. He got his brother’s hand-me-down socks, and in school, when the children took off their shoes to play a marching game, his too-long socks preceded him, flop, flop, flop.

At the urging of his father, a tool and die maker at General Electric, he attended Vermont Technical College after graduating from high school.

An instructor said one day.

“When you finish this, you will be able to fix a radio.”

Mr. Michaels thought.  

“I don’t want to fix the radio.  I want to be on the radio.”

So he went out to Eugene, Ore., and worked as a radio disc jockey while going to Lane Community College, living, he says, like a maniac: crashing cars, stealing food from grocery stores, racking up so many D.U.I.’s that a judge finally gave him the choice of going to jail or leaving the state. (He left the state.)

Eventually he went into sales, married and spent much time in metaphysical searching, exploring reincarnation and the power of the mind to heal physical ailments like cancer. (After the reporter tells him what she thinks of this — picture everyone in the Bronx doing the cheer that bears the borough’s name and you get the idea — he becomes guarded, but he does say that as a hypnotist, he regressed people to past lives.)

The Michaelses moved around, running a bed-and-breakfast in California, a llama ranch in Colorado. One day when they took a few of their llamas for a walk, a neighbor complained because they had walked across his property, and they knew it was time to move along.

They moved to Montana. Mr. Michaels’s communications business was thriving, but he had started drinking at night and smoking marijuana. Then, in the summer of 2004, some neighbors told him about a spiritual healer in Brazil named John of God, who could tell the state of your soul by looking at a photo.

Mr. Michaels sent the healer a picture, and it came back with a red X through it. His heart started pounding. He flushed all the pot he had just bought down the toilet, left his beer in front of a neighbor’s door, went up on the hill behind his house, where his first dog, One Eye, was buried, and wept. He reflected on his life, thought of all the hurtful things he had done as a young man and resolved to do better.

That was when he wrote his book about how to live a richer life and began giving “life assessment” workshops and playing Santa Claus in Trout Creek, intercepting the letters children sent to Santa at the post office and buying them gifts himself. He left waitresses $100 tips. He considered building a three-story lodge for his workshops, but the bank wanted to be too involved.

So the next thing you know, here comes the Hobbit project. Children were not admitted at first (Mr. Michaels did not want their sticky fingers on his expensive furnishings), but so many people wanted to bring them that they are now welcome if they are well behaved.

Mr. Michaels takes the reporter on a tour of the rest of his property: his three-bedroom home; the alpacas; the flying machine, which he has flown up to Cougar Peak (once a bald eagle with a fish in its talons flew alongside him). He seems to have bought all the toys he couldn’t afford as a boy, he is told.

Mr. Michaels agrees.

“There was a time my father wanted a pond on his property, and my brother and I spent two summers and a winter cutting down trees.”

He says.

“My brother and I worked for two summers, my father never even said ‘thank you.’ I decided to build my own pond, and I have a nice island out there and electricity on mine and a lighthouse where the lights go on.”

At the reporter’s request, they go up the hill where Mr. Michael did his vision quest, sitting beside the dog’s grave and thinking about what would become of his own spirit when he died. Four pets are now buried there, and when Mr. Michaels and his wife die, they will be buried there, too.

That evening, he and his wife invite the reporter to a supper any fat-bellied hobbit would appreciate: ribs made according to Mr. Michaels’s secret recipe, potato salad, huckleberry pie. Then it’s to bed.

The reporter tries on Gandalf’s felt wizard hat (too pointy) and the fuzzy deer-hide slippers (too clammy) and, unable to figure out how to turn off the red light on the headboard, throws a blanket over her head and tries to sleep. It occurs to her that she is 30 feet under a hill and the deceased pets are across the road under another hill. It seems as if there should be something profound in this, but the reporter cannot figure out what it is.

The next morning, when she goes to her car, she sees muddy paw prints on the door near the handle, about the height of a hobbit, a bear cub or a dog — a mystery that will remain unsolved. Then it’s back on the August road.

COMMENTARY:   That's what I call vacation house that is quite literally out-of-this-world. Located in a remote section of Montana.  Where the sky is blue and clear during the day.  And you can really see the stars at night.  Located where there are wild animals roaming closeby.  Where the air is clean, and you can read and just kick back and release.  If you like solitude of living out in the wild, away from humanity, and tourist crowds, then The Hobbit House is for you.  At $245.00 per night, that's a real bargain compared to some of the high-priced hotels and resorts.  

The Hobbit House lies in the colorful forested foothills of the Cabinet Mountains up in the Shire of Whitepine Valley approximately 8 Miles S.E. of Trout Creek, the huckleberry capital of Montana and 16 miles N.W. of Thompson Falls. This lushly appointed Tourist Home is tastefully furnished with a crafted King Size Bedroom, HD-Blu-Ray Color TV, 3 Phones and Wi-Fi, XM Radio and a designer’s kitchen furnished with customized granite counters, and all the appliances and tools a chef needs for gourmet creations, including a deck with gas barbeque. This “Hobbit Experience” is a must see if you are into the imaginative and mystical. Another reason to visit Montana!  

To make reservations for the Hobbit House

Please email us [email protected] 

or 

call us at (406) 827-7200 
fax: (406) 827-4554 
Hobbit House of Montana
9 Hobbit Lane, Trout Creek, Montana 59874 

Here's directions to get to the Hobbit House.   Notice ~ Your GPS will not work in getting you to the Shire 

9 Hobbit Lane, Trout Creek, Montana 59874
(406) 827-7200 

From Spokane, WA via Sandpoint, ID on Highway 200: 
* From Spokane / Coeur d' Alene
* Go EAST on I-90 to Highway 95 North (Coeur d’Alene). LEFT at exit
* North on Hwy 95 to Sandpoint, ID
* Go through Sandpoint following 95 through a traffic light that states Hwy 200 straight ahead (heading East) 
* East on Hwy 200 toward Montana.
* Stay on Highway 200 thru Clark Fork, Idaho; Heron, and Noxon to Trout Creek.
* Go past Trout Creek about 8 miles and turn right just past mile market 37 on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

** Remember there is a time change from Pacific to Mountain Time if you’re coming from Idaho ** 

From Spokane, WA over Thompson Pass Road: 
NOTE: This way of travel is closed in the winter months. 

• From Spokane / Coeur d' Alene
• Go EAST on I-90 to Exit 43 (Kingston). Turn Left
* Continue over free way and along the river to Prichard, ID (approx. 20 miles)
* Cross Prichard Creek
* Turn Right
* Go past Murray, ID
* You'll drive over Thompson Pass to Highway 200 (approx. 40 miles from Prichard)
* Turn LEFT at Highway 200 
* Travel approximately 12 miles almost to mile marker 37
* Just before mile marker 37 - Turn LEFT on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

From Missoula, MT: (This route is 20 miles shorter) 
* From Missoula 
* Go WEST on I-90 to Exit 96 heading toward Kalispell (Highway 93)
* Stay on Highway 93/200 until you get to Ravalli 
* Turn left on Highway 200 heading to Thompson Falls. 
See directions from Thompson Falls. 

From Missoula, MT via I-90: 
* From Missoula
* Go WEST on I-90 until you reach St. Regis, MT.
* Take Exit 33 (turn Right) on Hwy 135 heading toward Paradise, MT.
* Go approximately 35 miles to Hwy 200
* Go left on Hwy 200 to Thompson Falls, MT.
See directions from Thompson Falls. 

From Thompson Falls, MT: 
* Travel approximately 16 miles almost to mile marker 37
* Just before mile marker 37 - Turn LEFT on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

From Canada: 
* Go SOUTH till you hear the laughter of Hobbits...  

(8/11/11)

Courtesy of an article dated August 11, 2011 appearing in The New York Times Home & Garden

SINGAPORE'S WANDERLUST HOTEL MAKES A STATEMENT WITH ITS POP ART AND SURRELIST DESIGN CONCEPT

A concept hotel that doesn't look like German dungeon porn.

Normally, the thought of staying in a concept hotel makes us long for the simple splendors of Motel 6. We picture Santa-themed “love hotels” or places done up like a set from Interview with A Vampire-- and German dungeon porn. Sweet dreams!

But the new Wanderlust Hotel in Singapore -- which advertises its “concept” on its Web site -- isn't quite so self-serious. And it proves just how far the entire boutique hotel phenomenon has spread, while adapting to local tastes and whims.

Designed “to draw madcap voyagers and curious travelers,” it’s set up as a showcase for local designers. Each gets a floor and free agency to dress it any which way, whether in trompe l’oeil modern furniture (up top), glammy salon chairs or a wacked-out typewriter that would look right at home in Gulliver’s Travels (below). The whole thing’s so quirky and clashy and tacky, it seems like an anti-concept of sorts.

Which is a clever business tactic unto itself. Wanderlust Hotel is a property of the marketing company-turned-hotel group Design Hotels, which has turned the idea of boutique properties into a global enterprise. The company has more than 190 hotels around the world, each meticulously designed and entirely sui generis. Clearly, it recognizes that people like staying in playful theme hotels that aren’t mannered. More on Wanderlust below:

The lobby is fitted out like an industrial-chic barbershop. ByAsylum]:

Here, the art and design collective :phunk studio used an acid Pantone palette to paint rooms the color of famous songs.

COMMENTARY:  All I can say is WOW!!.  The Wanderlust Hotel is one crazy-ass hotel, nothing like I have ever seen before.  The fact that it is located in Singapore is even more surprising.  This hotel comes right out of a scene in the film "Beetlejuice".  I can visualize that crazy character running the reservation desk.  It's an expression of art, part Andy Warhol pop art and Salvadore Dali surrealism.  The hotel's design concept is completely unconventional, what I call hotel designer on an LSD trip, a mix of anything and everything, but surprisingly the design concept works.   Kids would go crazy in a hotel like this.   It's more of a playhouse than a hotel.

Courtesy of an article dated September 30, 2010 appearing in Fast Company Design  

 

THE HOBBIT HOUSE THAT IS RIGHT OUT OF A J.R.R. TOLKIEN 'LORD OF THE RINGS' FANTASY NOVEL, AND ITS FOR RENT IN MONTANA

Steve Michaels, proprietor of the Hobbit House, asks a reporter when he calls about his pet project.

“DO you have hairy feet?  Bilbo Baggins gets off on hairy feet. Hobbits have hairy feet. They also have hairy bellies. They eat about six times a day.”

If you are a J. R. R. Tolkien fan, this information is old news. But if its a new world your reaction is closer to,

“Hobbit? Short, some kind of elf, annoying. Bilbo? Bilious? Rocky Balboa?” 

And thanks to Mr. Michaels, you can spend the night in it. No need to bring slippers: a big hairy pair await you. Also a wizard’s hat, belonging to someone named Gandalf. How to get there? It’s a long, long journey, because wherever you live, it is not close.

Glorious August, the time for road trips. While it may seem that roadside America has been taken over by motel chains, one as sterile and uninspired as the next, this is not true: there are lots of rich and varied places to stay out there.

The Hobbit House, in northwest Montana, about a three-hour drive from Spokane, Wash., is a guesthouse. Number of units: one. But it is a large unit. The Web site, which the reporter studies before arriving, shows a 1,000-square-foot structure built into a hill, on a 20-acre site dotted with structures that range from small to perfect for squashing with your foot: a four-foot stump-shaped troll house, a few round-door hobbit houses with chimney pipes and several shoe-box-size fairy houses. 

The Hobbit House

View more documents from turk5555. 

Studying the pictures, the reporter has the sinking feeling that she will be spending the night at a miniature golf course. After arriving at the Hobbit House, this fear is quickly put to rest: there are no putting greens.

Mr. Michaels, who turns 63 this month and can be found at his own house across the road, is white-haired and as jolly as Santa, but with a much darker back story and some ambivalence about children. He makes his living as a broker of telephone answering businesses, running a company called TAS Marketing with his 59-year-old wife, Christine, who tends to practical matters like contracts.

But Mr. Michaels has also been many other things: a hypnotist; the author of a self-published self-help book called “How to Die With a Smile on Your Face”; something called a futurist, which seems to involve getting out of the city and arming yourself; and a llama rancher. He keeps four alpacas as pets; pilots what he calls his flying machine, a Buckeye Dream Machine-powered parachute; and gets about his 100-acre property in a Kubota RTV that resembles a hybrid golf cart and dump truck.

A HOBBIT, according to the literature, likes to be comfortable at home, and the guesthouse, shaped on the inside like an inverted bowl, is first class. Mr. Michaels charges $245 a night, and paid about $410,000 to build and furnish it.

There are granite counters in the kitchen, elaborate lighting and a Harmony audiovisual system. A gold ring, which figures prominently in hobbit lore, hangs from a rafter. The rustic wooden furniture is custom-made, and the headboards are embedded with the Hobbit House logo, a hobbit door with a red light — and on the headboards, it’s a real red light.

But what is a visit to the Hobbit House without a tour of the shire? Into the RTV we go, accompanied by Mr. Michaels’s dog, Libby, a collie-shepherd mix. Here is a tiny sod-roof house belonging to Frodo, a Baggins relation; there, in the trunk of a tree, is a mother-son fairy abode (complete with two doors). Not everything is hobbitically accurate: there is a two-foot-tall hairy-back frog, because Mr. Michaels figured that if hobbits were hairy, their frogs should be, too.

Mr. Michaels says, steering the cart toward the sod-covered roof of the life-size guesthouse. 

“And look. You can drive over the house, because it’s built into the ground. Right now, we’re 30 feet over your bedroom.”

Wahoo! Try that at the Best Western. The view of Mr. Michaels’s house across the road, beside the pond, is lovely, and there is an abundance of wildlife here, he says: they have seen coyote, elk, mountain lions, even a grizzly.

Does the wildlife ever damage those little structures?

Mr. Michaels says. 

“This spring we hauled almost a truckload of elk turd from the top of the Hobbit House.  On top of the house it’s nice and warm, and the grass comes in early, and they like to hang out there.”

Back at the guesthouse, we talk about the financial side of things. The Hobbit House was completed last fall, but the guest book shows only about 14 entries. How are they making a go of it?

Mr. Michaels says.  

“We’re not.  TAS Marketing is the way I make my money. This started out as a simple guesthouse, then my contractor’s son said, ‘Oh, it looks like a hobbit house.’ Then my imagination went wild. We read the book and watched the movies, and then we had to have a hobbit house, we had to have a troll house, we had to have the mushrooms. It’s all custom. I’ve got real rich taste.”

He later says.

“I have an addictive personality.”

What is the saga of this hobbit fan with the healing pyramid hanging from his neck, and from what exotic land did he emerge? Burlington, Vt., it turns out.

Mr. Michaels was the middle child of seven children, and his parents were strict and demanding. Also, they were poor. He got his brother’s hand-me-down socks, and in school, when the children took off their shoes to play a marching game, his too-long socks preceded him, flop, flop, flop.

At the urging of his father, a tool and die maker at General Electric, he attended Vermont Technical College after graduating from high school.

An instructor said one day.

“When you finish this, you will be able to fix a radio.”

Mr. Michaels thought.  

“I don’t want to fix the radio.  I want to be on the radio.”

So he went out to Eugene, Ore., and worked as a radio disc jockey while going to Lane Community College, living, he says, like a maniac: crashing cars, stealing food from grocery stores, racking up so many D.U.I.’s that a judge finally gave him the choice of going to jail or leaving the state. (He left the state.)

Eventually he went into sales, married and spent much time in metaphysical searching, exploring reincarnation and the power of the mind to heal physical ailments like cancer. (After the reporter tells him what she thinks of this — picture everyone in the Bronx doing the cheer that bears the borough’s name and you get the idea — he becomes guarded, but he does say that as a hypnotist, he regressed people to past lives.)

The Michaelses moved around, running a bed-and-breakfast in California, a llama ranch in Colorado. One day when they took a few of their llamas for a walk, a neighbor complained because they had walked across his property, and they knew it was time to move along.

They moved to Montana. Mr. Michaels’s communications business was thriving, but he had started drinking at night and smoking marijuana. Then, in the summer of 2004, some neighbors told him about a spiritual healer in Brazil named John of God, who could tell the state of your soul by looking at a photo.

Mr. Michaels sent the healer a picture, and it came back with a red X through it. His heart started pounding. He flushed all the pot he had just bought down the toilet, left his beer in front of a neighbor’s door, went up on the hill behind his house, where his first dog, One Eye, was buried, and wept. He reflected on his life, thought of all the hurtful things he had done as a young man and resolved to do better.

That was when he wrote his book about how to live a richer life and began giving “life assessment” workshops and playing Santa Claus in Trout Creek, intercepting the letters children sent to Santa at the post office and buying them gifts himself. He left waitresses $100 tips. He considered building a three-story lodge for his workshops, but the bank wanted to be too involved.

So the next thing you know, here comes the Hobbit project. Children were not admitted at first (Mr. Michaels did not want their sticky fingers on his expensive furnishings), but so many people wanted to bring them that they are now welcome if they are well behaved.

Mr. Michaels takes the reporter on a tour of the rest of his property: his three-bedroom home; the alpacas; the flying machine, which he has flown up to Cougar Peak (once a bald eagle with a fish in its talons flew alongside him). He seems to have bought all the toys he couldn’t afford as a boy, he is told.

Mr. Michaels agrees.

“There was a time my father wanted a pond on his property, and my brother and I spent two summers and a winter cutting down trees,”

He says.

“My brother and I worked for two summers, my father never even said ‘thank you.’ I decided to build my own pond, and I have a nice island out there and electricity on mine and a lighthouse where the lights go on.”

At the reporter’s request, they go up the hill where Mr. Michael did his vision quest, sitting beside the dog’s grave and thinking about what would become of his own spirit when he died. Four pets are now buried there, and when Mr. Michaels and his wife die, they will be buried there, too.

That evening, he and his wife invite the reporter to a supper any fat-bellied hobbit would appreciate: ribs made according to Mr. Michaels’s secret recipe, potato salad, huckleberry pie. Then it’s to bed.

The reporter tries on Gandalf’s felt wizard hat (too pointy) and the fuzzy deer-hide slippers (too clammy) and, unable to figure out how to turn off the red light on the headboard, throws a blanket over her head and tries to sleep. It occurs to her that she is 30 feet under a hill and the deceased pets are across the road under another hill. It seems as if there should be something profound in this, but the reporter cannot figure out what it is.

The next morning, when she goes to her car, she sees muddy paw prints on the door near the handle, about the height of a hobbit, a bear cub or a dog — a mystery that will remain unsolved. Then it’s back on the August road.

COMMENTARY:   That's what I call vacation house that is quite literally out-of-this-world. Located in a remote section of Montana.  Where the sky is blue and clear during the day.  And you can really see the stars at night.  Located where there are wild animals roaming closeby.  Where the air is clean, and you can read and just kick back and release.  If you like solitude of living out in the wild, away from humanity, and tourist crowds, then The Hobbit House is for you.  At $245.00 per night, that's a real bargain compared to some of the high-priced hotels and resorts.  

The Hobbit House lies in the colorful forested foothills of the Cabinet Mountains up in the Shire of Whitepine Valley approximately 8 Miles S.E. of Trout Creek, the huckleberry capital of Montana and 16 miles N.W. of Thompson Falls. This lushly appointed Tourist Home is tastefully furnished with a crafted King Size Bedroom, HD-Blu-Ray Color TV, 3 Phones and Wi-Fi, XM Radio and a designer’s kitchen furnished with customized granite counters, and all the appliances and tools a chef needs for gourmet creations, including a deck with gas barbeque. This “Hobbit Experience” is a must see if you are into the imaginative and mystical. Another reason to visit Montana!  

To make reservations for the Hobbit House

Please email us [email protected] 

or 

call us at (406) 827-7200 
fax: (406) 827-4554 
Hobbit House of Montana
9 Hobbit Lane, Trout Creek, Montana 59874 

Here's directions to get to the Hobbit House.   Notice ~ Your GPS will not work in getting you to the Shire 

9 Hobbit Lane, Trout Creek, Montana 59874
(406) 827-7200 

From Spokane, WA via Sandpoint, ID on Highway 200: 
* From Spokane / Coeur d' Alene
* Go EAST on I-90 to Highway 95 North (Coeur d’Alene). LEFT at exit
* North on Hwy 95 to Sandpoint, ID
* Go through Sandpoint following 95 through a traffic light that states Hwy 200 straight ahead (heading East) 
* East on Hwy 200 toward Montana.
* Stay on Highway 200 thru Clark Fork, Idaho; Heron, and Noxon to Trout Creek.
* Go past Trout Creek about 8 miles and turn right just past mile market 37 on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

** Remember there is a time change from Pacific to Mountain Time if you’re coming from Idaho ** 

From Spokane, WA over Thompson Pass Road: 
NOTE: This way of travel is closed in the winter months. 

• From Spokane / Coeur d' Alene
• Go EAST on I-90 to Exit 43 (Kingston). Turn Left
* Continue over free way and along the river to Prichard, ID (approx. 20 miles)
* Cross Prichard Creek
* Turn Right
* Go past Murray, ID
* You'll drive over Thompson Pass to Highway 200 (approx. 40 miles from Prichard)
* Turn LEFT at Highway 200 
* Travel approximately 12 miles almost to mile marker 37
* Just before mile marker 37 - Turn LEFT on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

From Missoula, MT: (This route is 20 miles shorter) 
* From Missoula 
* Go WEST on I-90 to Exit 96 heading toward Kalispell (Highway 93)
* Stay on Highway 93/200 until you get to Ravalli 
* Turn left on Highway 200 heading to Thompson Falls. 
See directions from Thompson Falls. 

From Missoula, MT via I-90: 
* From Missoula
* Go WEST on I-90 until you reach St. Regis, MT.
* Take Exit 33 (turn Right) on Hwy 135 heading toward Paradise, MT.
* Go approximately 35 miles to Hwy 200
* Go left on Hwy 200 to Thompson Falls, MT.
See directions from Thompson Falls. 

From Thompson Falls, MT: 
* Travel approximately 16 miles almost to mile marker 37
* Just before mile marker 37 - Turn LEFT on Whitepine Creek Road. Look for our Hobbit House Door Logo in Blue on the right.
* Go approximately 2 ½ miles to Hobbit Lane on right
* Park under trees in front of our Hobbit House sign
* Check-in at the house across the road 

From Canada: 
* Go SOUTH till you hear the laughter of Hobbits...  

(8/11/11)

Courtesy of an article dated August 11, 2011 appearing in The New York Times Home & Garden

THE HR GIGER "ALIEN" BAR OF THE HR GIGER MUSEUM IN SWITZERLAND REMINDS YOU OF THE MOVIE SET OF THE SCI-FI THRILLER "ALIEN"

The Alien monster from the sci-fi movie thriller "Alien" (Click Image To Enlarge)

Can you imagine stepping inside this bar? Bar? Yes, it is just a bar called “HR Giger Bar“, found at the HR Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland. HR Giger Bar is a cavernous,skeletal structure covered by double arches of vertebrae that crisscross the vaulted ceiling of an ancient castle. The sensation of being in this extraordinary setting recalls the tale of Jonah and the whale, lending the feel of being literally in the belly of a fossilized, prehistoric beast, or that you have been transported into the remains of a mutated future civilization. This is a really impressive design and I bet you will have a unforgettable drinking experience inside.

COMMENTARY:   I have been to Hollywood theme-style restaurants, but I have never seen anything like the HR Giger Restaurant and Bar which is right out of the movie set for the sci-fi move thriller "Alien."   Check out the video:

  

Amazing alien restaurant bar designed by H.R. Giger and if you don't know who Giger is then I shall tell you. He was involved in the design of the aliens in Alien the movie you know the alien tearing out of the stomach and the face huggers and the most dangerous alien acid blood burns any material. Anyway this bar is like the inside of the alien mother ship:-)   They even have piped in music with the sounds of the Alien monster.  

That's what I call one cool place worth checking if you are ever in Switzerland.

BTW, the 1979 movie "Alien" is one of my all-time favorites.  I remember when the movie first came out.  It scared the shit out of everybody in the audience and became an instant hit  The movie made Sigourney Weaver a household name, and began the Alien movie series.  Here's the original trailer, because I knew you would want to see it.   I know my fans very well.  Enjoy

 

Here's my favorite scene from the movie "Alien."    I knew you would like to see it, too.  Enjoy.

 

Courtesy of an article dated November 25, 2011 appearing in Design Swan

AIRBNB'S GLOBAL GROWTH IS SPECTACULAR WITH LISTINGS IN 192 COUNTRIES, 19,000 LOCATIONS, 1.2 BILLION TRAVELERS, 5 MILLIONTH BOOKING

AIRBNB HAS EXPERIENCED METEORIC GROWTH OVER THE LAST YEAR, FUELED BY GLOBAL EXPANSION. AND THEY'RE GOOD AT TELLING THE STORY.

A company’s annual report is a go-to reference when sizing up a company’s health and prospects. All those facts and figures arranged in black-and-white tables also make up the perfect cure for insomnia. Why do corporate documents have to be so boring? They don’t, as the info-data genius Nick Felton revealed in 2005, when he began issuing his own highly personalized form of annual reports chock full of biographical details presented with design gusto. (You may recall that Felton is also responsible for inspiring Facebook’s new Timeline format.) It took a few years, but companies are finally catching on to the idea of leavening snooze-inducing data with exciting colorful graphics and easy-to-read figures.

The latest to jump on the Felton bandwagon: Airbnb, which comprises a global network of local renters providing alternates to pricey hotel rooms. The big news here--rendered in eye-catching red--is that the three-year-old company is celebrating its 5 millionth nightly booking (4 million of which were made in the last year alone). That meteoric growth has a lot to do with its global expansion: 75% of its business now involves an international guest, host, or both--a fine argument for opening six new offices in major international cities by March 2012.

Click Image To Enlarge

COMMENTARY:   I must admit that I have not covered Airbnb in my blog, although it has been hailed as a huge financial success.   I just looked at the Airbnb website, and did a search for apartments and studios in the Cidade Maravilhosa a.k.a. Rio de Janeiro, and there are some nice pads in there.  Check out the Very new and beautiful 2Br Leblon and the Photographer's Loft at the beach in Leblon, the best neighborhood in RJ.  I enjoy cooking and being close to the Rio nightlife and excitement.  The apartments and studios listed in Airbnb are definitely head and shoulders above the accommodations at a top RJ hotel.    Now is a great time to visit, but keep in mind it is the high season so prices are much higher.  If you haven't made your reservations for Rio's Carnaval, it's probably already too late, in which case I would highly recommend Buzios, R.J. It's a wonderful Brazilian resort about 115 miles south of Rio, and they have some great BnB's or Posada's there.  Check it out.  If you've been to Rio, let us know what you thought.

Check this neat How To Airbnb video on YouTube:

 

Courtesy of an article dated January 27, 2012 appearing in Fast Company

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA, THE BELGIAN FASHION HOUSE, OPENS THE SURREAL LUXURY MAISON DES CENTRALIENS HOTEL

 

The cult darling of Belgian fashion brings weirdo decadence to Paris, a city overrun by precious traditionalism.

Avant-garde Belgian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela has given a très-cool makeover to a fussy, luxury hotel in Paris, the high Holy Land of fussy, luxury hotels.

Maison des Centraliens reopened to the public in May with a slick interior that turns this ornate, Second Empire townhouse (and former home of a Viennese princess) into a monument to the headscrewy Belgian surrealism for which Maison Martin Margiela earned its fashion-world star.

The place is a study in optical illusion. It’s got chairs and tables that appear to suspend in mid-air and trompe l’oeil wall coverings done up in the Hausmannian style that make closed doors seem like they're open. Laser in on the photos, and you’ll be hard-pressed to figure out whether you’re looking at new wallpaper or molding that the architect, Jules Pellechet, dreamed up some 150 years ago. There's a corridor covered floor to ceiling in what looks like tin foil and a mirrored, diamond-shaped parallelepiped said to reference 2001: A Space Odyssey. The dominant color scheme: clinical white.

This sort of high-minded impishness is weird stuff in a city that decorates its top hotels with canopy beds and Louis Quatorze tapestries. But there’s a business reason for it. Maison Martin Margiela -- which no longer operates under the aegis of its fearless, but elusive, leader, Martin Margiela -- rumbled to the fore of the fashion scene more than two decades ago with brainy, deconstructivist design often billed as a rebuke to the era’s penchant for opulent clothing. It has since become a cult darling of the taste-making elite, counting, among its loyal fans, everyone from Jay-Z to Thom Yorke.

Which means that in the rarefied world of fancy hotels, where exclusivity is everything, Maison des Centraliens has one thing the Ritzes and Le Meurices don't have: It’s cool. Says Bernadette Chevallier, who helped oversee the rebranding:

The hotels whose openings have lately been in the news, or soon will be, are all top grade luxury hotels embodying quite a traditional idea of luxury, even conventional in some cases. It’s a choice that has its merits but the Maison des Centraliens, by contrast, puts the focus on discretion and an offbeat take on luxury hotel standards. …[I]ts values revolve around light-heartedness, humour and a laid-back attitude. … Rather than a traditional luxury hotel, we are positioned as a prestigious boutique hotel that combines five-star amenities and services with an unconventional vision of the upmarket hotel business.

Even rarer: It’s relatively affordable. Rooms start at 203 Euros. A comparably sized room in a four-star hotel in Paris can cost twice that.

COMMENTARY:  The Maison des Centraliens (La Maison Champs Elysees) hotel is so typical of old style classic French hotels. I love what Maison Martin Margiela did in redesigning the interior of the hotel.  The white is a bit too much for my eyes, but I could definitely enjoy a stay there.  

The Maison des Centraliens is a 5-star hotel and has 57 rooms and suites, offering the ultimate in comfort, exemplary service and attention to detail. The hotel is ideally located off of the Champs Elysee.  It has a garden view on the quiet rue Jean Goujon, in the heart of Paris.  Amenities include Free Mini bar, Free WiFi, Free video films, and Apple Mac mini in all rooms.  Rates start at 500 Euros per night.  Check out the video:

 

I love that gold leaf being applied to the walls.   Below is a video of the grand opening of the hotel.

 

It's definitely a must see if I am ever in Paris and have the spare cash to afford such luxury.  It takes $1.41 Euros to the U.S. dollar, so that is going to be an expensive hotel bill, not including food, wine and tips.  I love wine, so I could definitely go crazy there.

Courtesy of an article July 18, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design 

AN APPETITE FOR DESIGN: MENU DESIGN IN AMERICA: 1850-1985, 12 DELICIOUS VINTAGE MENUS

A menu is probably one of the most frequently viewed examples of graphic design, yet also one of the most overlooked. But there was a time when the menus -- gorgeously ornate like fine literature -- were as anxiously anticipated as the meals themselves. A new book by Taschen, Menu Design in America: 1850-1985 explores the golden age of design and dining through 800 menus, beginning with the bills of fare for the very first restaurants to open during the late 1800's.

From a utilitarian printed menu at one of Abraham Lincoln's private dinners to the flamboyant '80s graphics that were signature for California cuisine, the menus are ephemera from a different era, examining our changing dietary habits through the predominant style of the day. The menus also show another transformation in our culture: At first, dining out was a luxury reserved exclusively for the upper class. The design shows the gradual progression toward the democratization of dining out.

Like a matchbook or a bar napkin, a menu is another of those accessible pieces of our popular culture -- it had to be a worthy and intriguing visual introduction to the cuisine, yet disposable enough to go missing or absorb the juices of a medium rare chateaubriand. Essentially, in those days, a piece of art was free with the price of the meal.

Design writing treasure Steven Heller pens a historical introduction -- who knew that the menu came about thanks to emerging type foundries rising at the same time as a nascent Parisian restaurant scene? Photographs of the restaurant interiors and detailed captions by culinary historian John Mariani nearly seat the reader at the tables of the dining institutions, many of which are long-faded memories. Hundreds of the menus are owned by Taschen executive editor Jim Heimann as part of his private collection -- and Heimann is, in fact, a designer of menus as well.

It's difficult not to grow just a bit depressed while paging through the vibrant colors and considered typography. Yes, our briskly rotating seasonal cuisine and availability of local ingredients make it difficult for a restaurant to devote serious production value to a menu that will be out-of-date in a week. Still, today's menus are clearly more of an afterthought. There are exceptions, of course. But if just one restaurant discovers the iconic branding for the Four Seasons in New York City and reconsiders clamping a sheet of laser-printed paper on a clipboard and calling it a menu, this book is a success.

COMMENTARY:   I love these vintage menu's from the past.  The  art deco look, post card colors, and those incredible low prices.  Cafe Martin served dinner between 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. for $1.50 back in 1903.  That Romanoff's menu reminds me of Fu Manchu China back in the 1930's before WWII.  Bimbo's 365 Club of San Francisco has been around since 1931.  Bimbo's has jump started many rock band's and the ticket prices aren't bad either.

"BRIGHTLIGHTS" of Bimbo's 365 Club from Bimbo's 365 Club on Vimeo.

New York's famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is a New York landmark.  Remember those televised formal New Year's  Eve parties?  I have not stayed there, but spent time at the famous Long Bar and dined at a couple of their restaurants several times. Marilyn Monroe once took up residence there.  Every U.S. President has stayed there.

I've always loved the daily activities and menu's that all cruise ship lines print and put in your room so you know what's going on.  The food is fantastic, but the most I can handle out at sea is about 2 or 3 days max.  Just too confining.

Courtesy of an article dated September 1, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design

UNREAL VIDEOS OF A PASSENGER CRUISE SHIP BEING ROCKED VIOLENTLY BY THE WAVES OF A HURRICANE

Ever wonder what it's like to be a passenger inside a luxury cruise ship in a full-fledged hurricane. Be sure to watch both videos.

 

The video belows shows the chaos inside the ship as ships furniture, contents and passengers are being knocked around like riding a brahma bull.

COMMENTARY:    I can attest to the power of the sea, having experienced first hand a typhone during my U.S. Navy days.   I can remember how difficult it was to walk from my bunk room to the bridge to relieve the midnight watch on the bridge. This happened in the middle of the night, without any moonlight, so you get very disoriented and quickly became seasick.  No coffee that night.  Passenger cruise ships are supposed to be equipped with stabilizers that keep the ship from listing violently.  However, this passenger cruise ship is being bounced around mercilessly, no wonder the passenger's and contents of the ship are swaying back and forth.  If you know the name of the ship and date this happened, please psot a comment.   

I wonder how the Carnival Lines' Oasis of the Seas, the world's largest passenger cruise ship would fair in a full-fledged hurricane.  

Courtesy of an article dated May 10, 2011 appearing in Before It"s News

 

 

 

NAU ARCHITECT'S ECO-FRIENDLY ROOFTOP HOTEL CAPSULE THAT LOOKS LIKE A SPACESHIP

 

Nevermind the penthouse, we’ll take the pod, please!

The future-fetishizing minds over at Nau architects are up with another wacky concept that’ll probably see the light of day precisely never, but we’ll humor the fantasy all the same, 'cause it’s kinda' awesome: It’s a green energy-powered temporary apartment tamped into a tiny, 28-foot-long capsule that, on a whim, can travel from the rooftops of New York to the tree canopies of the Amazon.

The “Living Roof” squeezes all the requisite amenities of a hotel room into what looks like a cross between a giant bonbon and something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and works like a mini power plant, producing more energy than it consumes, through wind turbines, solar panels, and rainwater collection. The Living Roof is “intended for urban rooftops,” the architects write, but can be transported “into the savanna” -- or anywhere else for that matter -- at a moment’s notice. The idea: to help “resolve one of the paradoxes of modern life: the contemporary citizen seeks mobility, but also wants to tread softly on the environment.”

It’s not hard to imagine a market for this kind of thing, pie-and-the-sky though it seems: We envision cashed-up greenies, who want penthouse views without the corollary carbon footprint, renting it for their cushy, crunchy vacations. A bonus: The interior transforms at the press of a button from a lounge to a sleeping pod to an office, so we could even picture suits using it as a pied-à-terre on extended work trips.

The concept's got a big flaw, though, and that's that it doesn't thinkfar enough into the future. As it stands, the Living Roof would have to be air-lifted from one destination to the next -- which would partly offset whatever environmental brownie points you scored powering your toilet with PV cells. But if this thing could fly (on some kind of tomorrowland clean-energy goo, natch), oooh, baby, you’d have yourself one hell of a hotel concept, one that’d find takers in a twinkle, from the eco-freak jetset to James Bond.

COMMENTARY:   These rooftop capsules have a spaceship quality about them.  I can easily see these used as the cheap alternative to the apartment or office.  Instead of putting up a high-rise condominium or virtual office spaces,  just build the the framing and floors, then place these on each floor.  Talk about an incredible 360 degree view!!

NAU Architects is located in Zurich, Switzerland offices Europoe and the U.S.  Their architectural philosophy is explained below.

 

If you find capsules interesting checkout the following Dream and Fly's Bubble Sleeping Pods, Japan's Capsule Hotel and Sleep Box by the Arch Group.  Sleeping capsules like the above are very popular in Japan and some parts of Europe.   They rent for $50-$60 a nite, and a great place to rest during short trips, and if you are on a tight budget.  These are not for everybody, but they are cool.

Courtesy of an article dated May 3, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design