Gallery: It's a Fancy Hotel, Only, You Know, for Bicycles
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This is a hotel for bicycles.
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There are several other bike hotels throughout Norway. Lillestrøm, a small town about 11 miles outside Oslo, just happens to boast the largest one yet: its hotel can sleep 400 bicycles at a time.
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Norwegian National Railways commissioned Oslo firm Various Architects to build it, to encourage more cycling.
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A ramp runs diagonally up one side, leading to a public patch of greenery on the rooftop.
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“We thought it would be important to give back to the city the area we took away,” says Ibrahim Elhayawan, the partner at Various Architects who led the project.
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Space for building was tight, so the bikes stack on top of one another indoors.
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Like bike lanes and bike bridges, bike hotels make it easier for people to choose cycling over driving. Crucially, they also make it safer—for both bikes and the people who ride them.
