A New Look at the Olympic Village

Every 2 years, a new city is selected to host either the Winter or Summer Olympic Games. Many cities take a decade or more in their push to be chosen. And if they’re lucky enough to be chosen, they have another 10 years to put everything together in order to host athletes from 160+ countries. In London, they decided to take a new look at the Olympic Village.

For many cities, a properly run Olympic Games can provide a huge boost to the local economy. Lately, however, more and more cities are discovering that the long-term costs of hosting an Olympic Games far outweigh the expected short-term economic gains. And no matter how hard a city plans for lasting value (in terms of name recognition, increased tourism, added jobs, etc), more and more cities are taking a pass at hosting the games. One look at detritus of  1984 Sarajevo Olympic Games will give you goosebumps and serve as a reminder of just how tricky managing the costs of hosting an Olympics can be. Obviously, nobody can anticipate a civil war, but you get the idea.

Take for example the 1980 Winter Olympic Games held in Lake Placid, NY. In order to keep costs down, civic leaders decided to turn an under construction prison into the housing for the Olympic Village.

In London, civic leaders got creative when it came to housing for the surge in security personnel. Though the budget for security was listed at £600 million British Pounds, there was still an issue of space and portability of housing structures. So, event planners turned to a company called Snoozebox, who created a line of portable apartments (they call them portable hotels) made from repurposed Shipping Containers.

We were introduced to Snoozebox through this article in Apartment Therapy, a company that advocates the use of repurposed Shipping Containers to use as living spaces.

The beauty of these apartments — besides the fact they’re made from used Shipping Containers — is their unique portability. They can be configured to any size event, come equipped with all of the amenities of your average modern hotel (Wi-Fi, comfortable beds, en-suite bathrooms, safe, etc). For the 2012 London Olympics, they put together a small village in Essex with 320 shipping containers being turned into these apartments. Once they arrived, they were ready for check-in within 48 hours. Truly awesome!

To see the Snoozebox apartments being put together in the UK, check out this short video, courtesy of the BBC. It’s very cool.

This is just another example of the amazing work that can be done with used Shipping Containers and we here at Shipped.com applaud Snoozebox and the work they do. By giving local municipalities a way to manage temporary surges in population, for any type of event, perhaps future Olympic Games will become more manageable and profitable…and without any crazy ghost-towns left behind.

Has this article motivated you to find a shipping container and start creating your own shipping container apartment complex?  Or perhaps a smaller version of what you see here in London? Sourcing containers from sellers worldwide just got a whole lot easier. Whether you’re in Lake Placid or Lake Tahoe, The Shipped.com Marketplace connects buyers and sellers from all over the world, enabling you to get the lowest price possible along with the fastest delivery time. You can sign up in seconds and within minutes sellers worldwide will be sending you their very best offers on exactly what you’re looking for. You’ll have your choice of the highest quality shipping containers at the lowest possible prices. Visit the Shipped.com Marketplace and submit your container request now.

Once your containers arrive, contact us and we’ll be happy to point you in the direction of people who can help you get started creating your own shipping container apartment.

Your comments, tweets, emails and phone calls are valuable and important. So if you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding this blog or Shipped.com in general, we’d love to hear from you.

Portable Apartments made from used Shipping Containers

Premium fixtures are part of this particular complex.

A New Look at the Olympic Village

Are you interested in buying a new or used shipping container at the lowest possible price along with the best delivery terms available? Shipped.com saves you real time and money, enabling you to see instant pricing, including delivery and checkout all online!  See Details…