Small footprints, careful design and a bed as the main event.
No. 01
9h nine hours Yokohama
Yokohama, Japan
Wash for an hour, sleep for seven, get ready in one. That's the logic behind the brand name, and every part of a 9h stay is arranged around it.
Shoes come off at the entrance. Bags go in a locker. Guests change into the supplied loungewear and head for a moulded pod on a floor kept separate by gender. Lighting inside the pod fades out at bedtime and rises gradually in the morning. The palette is black, white and grey throughout. It is built for one night, maybe two.
Moulded pods
Separate floors
Locker storage
Overnight format
No. 02
YOTEL Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Take the free ferry from behind Centraal Station and the city changes. Amsterdam-Noord is shipyards turned studios, wide water and a lot of sky. YOTEL settled here.
Rooms are called cabins, and the design comes from airline interiors. Motorised beds fold upright into sofas when you want floor space back. Showers are fitted tight but generous on pressure. Check-in happens at a kiosk. The ground-floor social space, with long tables and a bar, takes the place of a traditional lobby.
Airline-style cabins
Fold-up beds
Waterfront north
Kiosk check-in
No. 03
The Jane Hotel
New York, United States
William A. Boring, the architect behind Ellis Island's main building, designed this red-brick block on Jane Street. It opened in 1908 as lodgings for sailors. Four years later it gave shelter to survivors of the Titanic.
Those seafaring roots explain the rooms. Standard cabins are narrow, styled after train sleeper berths, with a single bed or bunks and the bathroom down the corridor. Captain's cabins are larger and come with their own bath. The Hudson riverfront is a block or two west.