TARGET 150610

Your Morning at the Quaint Little
British Bed & Breakfast

ON the river

So you've decided to take your vacation sightseeing around jolly ol' London-town. You rent a Bed & Breaakfast and wake up to a beautiful morning outside, with the light shining into your very comfortable bedroom. Ah! Vacations are good!!!

The kitchenette

You go into the kitchenette to start a pot of coffee and then sit and enjoy the morning until your guide arrives. It's a really nice and peaceful place, but like everywhere that's not home, there are some odd decorations - like that ship's steering wheel in front of the kitchen sink. Oh, well. It just adds ambiance to the trip.



You go out the front door to look at the morning. It's a really quaint cottage you've rented for your visit. There is a wisteria tree growing at the front door and a larger tree out in the yard. Beautiful.



There are ivy and flowering shrubs along the fence. How British can you get?



And the gate has...... a chain?



And the chain hangs over the fence and hooks to it on both sides.



Then you think back to the kitchenette, where that ship's wheel is located.



Oh, yeah! The tour guide will be here at 10 to hook the house up to a tug boat and steer it down the river so you can sit in your front yard, sipping tea, while you take that vacation tour around jolly ol' London-town.







The address of this bed & breakfast cottage is No. 1, Thames. It is a two-bedroom cottage with a kitchenette and luxuriously furnished living room. It has all the facilities of a regular house (except, maybe, easy access to the kitchen sink). And, by the way, there is also a very nice dog house in the front yard, in case you want to bring little Phydough along.

The house was designed by twin brothers Steve and Nick Tidball, of the TBWA advertising agency for a company named AirBnB. AirBnB wanted something that would enable guests to see the city in a different way. The design will not only provide views of London from its famous river, but references the city's townhouse architecture.

Consideration was given, in particular, to how the house would look standing alone. It was decided that the "picturesque homes of Primrose Hill and Hampstead" and even some influence from Pixar's animated film Up would give the "fairy-tale" look which was being aimed for.

It is made from six steel shipping containers that have been clad in wood. By using a uni-float pontoon as the base instead of more conventional steel barges, it was easier to create a shape that would accommodate both the building itself and the accompanying garden.

The house walls and garden extend below the waterline, in part to mask the base upon which they are floating. The floor in the house itself, is raised over 1.5 m (4.9 ft) higher than it would be in a normal house, again so that the base can be contained and hidden underneath the structure.

There are some clever touches in order to provide all the facilities required for hosting guests. Water tanks hidden beneath ensure that guests are able to have showers, and outlet pipes for waste water and bathrooms are also routed t the dog house in the garden. There is a generator hidden in the roof to provide power.

The whole structure was prefabricated off-site and assembled on the water using a floating pontoon and cranes. As per Port of London Authority requirements, it is not self-propelled, but instead has to be towed. A tug boat is used for towing, but is kept at a 30-m (98-ft) distance to help maintain the illusion of an independently floating home.

According to AirBnB, which has bed & breakfast facilities worldwide, this is the first time a structure of this style has been allowed on the Thames, where there is a strict rule against house boats in the port areas.


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pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:

Gizmag
AirBnB website

Many thanks to Gizmag.com for these pictures & text.