More than 100 colorful containers have been scattered in a forest for animal hostel that features different, abstract animal façades in the Wild World Jinan, China.

Named Travelers Container Hostel, the 4,048-square-metre project was designed by Qishe Architectural Design Office to create a theme camp for travelers. The project, created as a new "Animal Home" in Jinan, will be opened to the public this year. 

Designed to explore and discover nature closely, the buildings were conceived as small boxes scattered in the nature of the forest, redefining container architecture. 

The theme camp occupies a total area of 4 hectares and it is located to the west of the Wild World Jinan, besides the banks of the picturesque Wangyun Lake.

By choosing this construction method through containers, the architects' aim was leave the minimum footprint on the nature to protect environment.

The project currently has two themed container camps: the specialty restaurants and the open event venues, which makes it a good place for group activities, camping, and summer bonfire parties.

"In this advantaged natural environment, the first problem to be solved is how to minimize the impact of the building on the natural ecological environment, in order to better connect the surrounding animal and botanical parks, and stimulate people's interest and a sense of joy to experience here," said Qishe Architectural Design Office. 

"At the same time, the owner also put forward a proposition composition about building materials to the designers--to build container-style buildings and rationally use the owner's over 100 containers."

Considering environment concerns and scale of the project, the qualified propositions inspired the designers' creative inspiration. The design team completed an in-depth analysis and research on the "container architecture" and scattered all the program functions within these modules. 

According to the team, "the initial plans mostly tried to focus on the splicing and construction of containers to build an interesting space. However, they are not much different from other projects." 

As a result, designers started design from the macroscopic point of view, by focusing on the unique theme of the "Wild Animal Kingdom".

On the other hand, the design team explored the other characteristics of the container such as "closed box space", "colorful", " children's favorite toy blocks". In the end, the theme of "New Animal House in the forest" has emerged gradually.

The design team implemented colorful themed container rooms in a camp by a lake to be undoubtedly very attractive activity. 

On the outer façades of modules, they represented the animals with colorful and distinctive animals abstract drawings like "Pink-Flamingos", "Yellow-Tiger", "Gray-Elephant", "Dark Blue-Snow Wolf" and "Black and White-Panda". 

With these drawings, the designers seem to have returned to their childhood and fully carry forward "the spirit of play", which can also arouse the excitement of the participants in the adventure. 

Like playing toy blocks, the containers are combined into independent and abstract animal modules.

"Also, the master plan is going to abandon Traditional planning thinking and explore new ways of planning," added the firm. 

"The independent "animals" live in groups according to their preferences and organize them in a free space layout, become the groups of special theme parks, such as "The Panda Restaurant", " The Bird Camp", "The Lucky Elephant Camp", "The Tiger Camp", "The Wolf Camp", and so on." 

Each unit is placed based on the distribution of natural landscape, all of them were orderly scattered in space, and connected by road in the park.

In overall design, the team followed some basic design principles such as flexibility, modularity, people-oriented, reliable solution, get close to nature, variety of colors and easy to play were the key factor to deliver an efficient project for green and prefabricated buildings.

As the architects highlight, "Flexibility means "The flexibility of combination, construction flexibility, and application flexibility."

"Modularity means "The prefabricated module can well achieve the requirements of "peak carbon dioxide emissions", "carbon neutrality" and "sustainable development".

"People-oriented means "They have good daylight conditions. Different types of light can be introduced into the room."

"Reliable solution means "Design with recyclable materials and disassembly strategy."

"Get close to nature" means to integrate into nature, and protect nature", while "Variety of colors" evokes "simple appearance."

The concept of "Easy to play" was explored for the joy of venues and spaces.

"In the design concept of natural ecology, we strive to create a wonderful dialogue between "small buildings" and "great nature", and try to make a new experience of "coming from nature and going to ecology". Therefore, we wanner to bring all users a unique accommodation experience," the studio added.

Analysis diagram

Site plan

Site plan

Color analysis

The Tiger Camp 1F Plan

The Tiger Camp 2F Plan

The Tiger Camp Section

The Tiger Camp Section

The Tiger Camp Elevation

The Tiger Camp Elevation

The Bird Camp Ground Floor Plan

The Bird Camp 2F Plan

The Bird Camp Section

The Bird Camp Section

The Bird Camp Elevation

The Bird Camp Elevation

Project facts

Project name: Travelers Container Hostel

Architects: Qishe Architectural Design Office 

Location: Jinan, China.

Size: 4,048m2 

Date: 2021 

All images © Relight Photography

All drawings © Qishe Architectural Design Office 

> via Qishe Architectural Design Office