CALGARY—A new 63-room hotel has opened its doors in Bruderheim, Alta.—a small town about 50 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

With no distinctive features, few would guess the Studio 6 is one of the largest buildings of its kind in North America—but with more than five dozen suites carved out of approximately 80 recycled shipping containers, the extended stay hotel is on the cutting edge of modular building design.

Manufactured and constructed by Calgary-based Lacador Ltd., the project includes a modular elevator that reaches all four floors, a modular roof, as well as a lounge area, fitness room and the 63 guest rooms, each replete with a kitchenette.

“The Ladacor modular building technology offered a durable steel building with a fast-track construction schedule at a competitive turn-key price,” Boris Javorski, one of the partners behind the hotel, said. “The end product is of excellent quality and the building is indistinguishable from conventional construction.”

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Ladacor re-engineers the surplus shipping containers at a 28,400 sq. ft. facility in Calgary. It’s currently working on a number of projects in the industrial, commercial and residential sectors, including a seniors home in Northern Alberta, an Edmonton rental building and smaller three-bedroom housing projects on First Nations reserves.

Compared to conventional building methods, the company’s shipping containers offer significant savings on construction costs. Meanwhile, because separate teams of workers can prepare a construction site and manufacture the containerized building simultaneously, the modular buildings often go up more quickly than those with conventional designs as well.