First modular hotel assembled for Expo.01 exhibition

Switzerland's national exhibition Expo.01, which is due to take place around the lakes of Biel, Murten and Neuchâtel in the year 2001, has its first hotel in the town of Yverdon.

Switzerland’s national exhibition Expo.01, which is due to take place around the lakes of Biel, Murten and Neuchâtel in the year 2001, has its first hotel in the town of Yverdon.

Christened “Eco-Lodgia”, the hotel is one of the first concrete projects of the exhibition, which has been beset with management and financial problems over the past few months.

A 50-ton crane is building the modular hotel at the rate of one 16 ton-room or module every 15 to 20 minutes. The finished hotel will have 95 rooms.

The hotel will be ready in October and has already been reserved for visitors of the Telecom 99 exhibition taking place in Geneva.

The construction is not only being considered a technical masterpiece, but it also fulfills the strictest of criteria set by the Expo.01 organisers — imagination, precycling and private financing.

The hotel is being considered an attractive, value for money, sustainable and environment-friendly product, which is up to the standards of the modern hotel business.

The first Expo.01 hotel can also be dismantled: After the end of the exhibition, the hotel will be moved to another site in Yverdon to house students of the canton Vaud engineers’ school.

With its 25 single rooms, 60 double rooms and ten suites, the hotel is located in a quiet area with a view of the Thielle and the Lake of Neuchâtel.

The life span of the hotel is put at more than 50 years and the cost of a module is between SFr30,000 ($20,000) and SFr50,000 ($33,333), which is comparable with traditional constructions.

From SRI staff.