Fuel The Future: The Pixel Hotel & MORPHHotel

“Radical Innovation has been discovering and spotlighting visionaries for over 15 years,” explains John Hardy, Founder of Radical Innovation and Chairman and Founder of The Hardy Group. “Many of the entries that we review represent major industry trends way ahead of their time, and years before they are introduced to the marketplace, some before they even seem feasible.” The innovative concepts that our jurors review predict the future of hospitality. Below are two examples; The Pixel Hotel, and MORPHHotel.

THE PIxel hotel - Metro 1 Properties in partnership with Carl Hildebrand, 2009

The Pixel Hotel submission was operating in Linz, Austria in 2009. The deconstructed traditional hotel model won the competition, earning the $10,000 grand prize. The group of architects leased and renovated functioning real estate, creating guestrooms in six locations across the city’s urban core—for example, they built a room in an art gallery and one on a boat—to give guests a new way to experience the city firsthand.

Does this concept sound familiar? Of course, it is similar to Airbnb, six years before Airbnb hit mainstream. “Pixel was a more interesting concept, using the city of Linz as their lobby and then distributed unique lodging properties as their rooms, allowing travelers to experience non-traditional locations within the city rather than typical tourist locations. All reservations and guest communications were on-line.” - John Hardy

MORPHotel - Gianluca Santosuosso ofUoou Studio, 2012

MORPHotel is an entire Ecosystem on water, moving all the while at a pace slower than the average velocity of a boat. The ‘Floating Hotel System’ designed for experiencing an endless journey to explore the depths of the world and its uncharted territories. The concept is plausible with its self-sufficiency and the ability to float with the ocean-currents. Conceptualized in the form of a Spinal Cord, it has several capsules accommodating residential and recreational facilities, interconnected linearly. The vertebral Spine is approximately one kilometer in length with a high amount of flexibility providing to the structure an adaptive quality. The MORPHotel thus flaunts an ability to change its shape according to the weather conditions and the surrounding site morphology.  

“Over the past few years, floating hotels have been introduced in various worldly locations, such as Serbia, Vietnam, Tanzania and more. The functioning hotels are a new concept and have begun small in size. We are confident that this is the start of a much larger hotel chain, such as the MORPHotel.” - John Hardy