Welcome to the Hive: OVA designs wild shipping container hotel for competition

Not only did Hong Kong-based OVA envision a unique method of paying for this shipping-container hotel concept, the firm designed a structure that could be altered on a whim.

Shipping container architecture has caught on recently, as in the case of this student housing development in South Africa. Like that apartment complex, the Hive-Inn would be made entirely of shipping containers.

But in OVA's concept, any shipping container, or hotel room, can be moved at will. In other words, at any given time, the hotel can remove one room entirely and replace it with something else, or transfer it to a different area of the overall hotel.

The malleable nature of the concept lends itself to a one-of-a-kind advertising strategy: make each shipping container the property of an advertiser. As examples, OVA created renderings of a Ferrari room and an Alexander McQueen room. Essentially, according to their model, an advertiser would design the inside and outside of the shipping container for a certain price. Then, their container/room would act as an advertisement, both for the residents who opted for "the Ferrari room" and anyone passing by the hotel.

"Pushing the idea, we found that creating a link between famous brands, container fit-out, and Hive-Inn operators could be a winning scenario in which greater experience for the customer could meet with higher expense for the brands, with lower overall costs for the hotel operator," OVA said in a statement.

The Hive-Inn was designed as an entry in the 2014 Radical Innovation Awards competition. Competition finalists will present and defend their work in May.

Take a look at the Hive-Inn concept below. All renderings courtesy of OVA Studio.