Tiny Pod, sustainable & mobile shipping container hotels in S’pore

Maximum family take a look at transport boxes and notice a transportation medium for immense gadgets. They belong at the again of ships or stacked towering and proud at ports. 

However Seah Liang Chiang sees them as sleep spots, a park the place you’ll be able to journey to escape from hour’s hecticness. 

A part of this inspiration comes from the then-popular Netflix’s Minute Space Folk TV order. “I wanted to find out how it was like to live in a tiny house,” Liang Chiang stated. It additionally helped that he already had some land in Ledang Heights, Malaysia, that used to be going through a puddle on the hour.

On the other hand, he didn’t have the method to manufacture a weighty space there. Next he idea, why now not a mini cabin?

So , he purchased a transport container and became it into his house clear of house. 

“After I built it, I was so happy with the outcome that I decided to build pop-up hotels in Singapore using shipping containers,” he exclaimed. Thus, started the tale of Minute Pod.

Little areas, weighty ambitions

Liang Chiang wasted incorrect hour in drafting a industry proposal and sending it to the Professional-Undertaking Panel (PEP). It’s an company below the Ministry of Industry and Business Singapore that helps the expansion of native companies. 

Intrigued through the concept that, PEP authorised the speculation below its First Mover Framework and with their aid, he discovered the spot to kickstart his lodge desires.

Sitting on two plots of land at JTC Launchpad @ One North is Minute Pod’s first lodge. Like a mini rental, the park is totally provided with the entirety you’d want—a complete kitchen, eating segment, two queen-sized beds, a rest room, tv, and wifi.

You have to say it’s sheer success or simply well timed industry methods, however both method, Singaporeans had been overjoyed with the concept that. When its doorways first opened in January 2020, their occupancy charge used to be related to 90%. 

Next the pandemic landed and move used to be restricted. “We didn’t know whether it was going to be a success or not. In fact, when we had to close the hotel during Singapore’s Circuit Breaker for three months due to COVID, we thought that it was the end of this dream,” he recalled.

But if the Circuit Breaker used to be over, industry picked up much more. Singaporeans had been hungry to withdraw from the home and because out of the country move wasn’t allowed, they hunted for album staycations, a Minute Pod forte. 

In that sunny, Liang Chiang started increasing the emblem with larger and bolder ambitions.

Going complete steam forward

The corporate these days has 3 levels of accommodations to suit other buyer wishes and budgets. 

The ones on the lookout for a extra sumptuous keep may just go for its Farmland Pod that’s positioned inside the quiet zen ground on the Areas through the Bay. Date it will look like a facade, all 4 of its duplex suites are constructed from repurposed 40-footer transport boxes. 

The length is powered through slim photovoltaic sun panels and lines many home windows to form it really feel extra spacious. An evening right here begins from S$550 and will accommodate as much as a celebration of 5.

Every other collection of Minute Pod’s accommodations are its mid-range remains. This comprises the primary transport container lodge in One North and a more moderen length at Haw Par Villa. 

The closing is positioned inside the oldest theme soils in Singapore. The compound is enclosed with luscious woodlands, which sounds best possible for family short of to departure the hustle and bustle of town. The associated fee for one night time’s keep right here starts at S$250.

Minute Pod’s 3rd fluctuate of accommodations, but to be introduced, diversifies out of doors of the transport container realm. In its park, the emblem can be the use of decommissioned SMRT trains, changing them into co-living accommodations. There can be a complete of 8 micro-rooms, each and every round 80 sq toes with an connected rest room.

The theory took place when he first heard that the Land Shipping Authority (LTA) used to be decommissioning used trains. So he approached them about two years in the past. “LTA was very open to the idea of giving the decommissioned trains a new lease of life.”

“I used to outsource the building [and] renovation to third party contractors. But having learnt from the construction of our first three hotels, I’m now able to build the hotels myself,” he enthused. The lodge can be introduced round This autumn this time.

Hot unused trails in hospitality

Extra than simply aesthetics, regardless that, Minute Pod is in fact about sustainability and innovating the lodge scene. 

There are 3 major explanation why the corporate selected to worth transport boxes. First is value, as transport boxes are simply to be had and fairly reasonable. 2nd is they’re extra eco-friendly as the emblem simply repurposes present transport boxes. 

The 3rd? Its mobility. 

“It’s easy to move a shipping container from one spot to another. They’re meant to be transported easily,” Liang Chiang shared. Which is why Minute Pod markets their accommodations as “pop-ups”.

For the reason that get started, his plan had all the time been to exit those accommodations to other portions of the island or the sector each and every few years. “Unlike other building structures, we don’t need to demolish our hotels. We can merely move the entire hotel to a new location.” 

Preferably, this could be in playgrounds the place you’ll be able to’t in most cases discover a lodge in order that visitors can also be plugged into other environments. As such, Minute Pod’s latter purpose is to manufacture the sector’s biggest movable and sustainable co-living lodge.

To reach this, they’re in the hunt for Layout A investment between S$3 million to S$5 million to manufacture 200 co-living accommodations in Singapore. His hope is to in the end personal or function 1,000 of them.

Be told extra about Minute Pod right here.
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Featured Symbol Credit score: Minute Pod