Picture this - instead of taking a bus to your next hotel, you grab a boat and sail out to a remote oil rig in the gulf of Mexico. On board the platform you'll find all the amenities you'd expect from a luxury resort, including a spa and several swimming pools.

This may sound like something out of a James Bond movie, but the concept is actually not that far from becoming reality.

The brains behind the idea come from Morris Architects, a design firm with offices in Houston, Los Angeles and Orlando who won an international hospitality award with the concept.

There are currently just under 4000 platforms in the gulf of Mexico, varying from tiny facilities to massive concrete structures. Sooner or later the oil and gas in their field will go dry, and the normal solution is to blow the thing up and let it sink. By converting some of the platforms to hotel resorts, the impact on the environment could be greatly reduced.

That said - I'm not sure I'd feel entirely comfortable in the gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. Despite being built to withstand pretty bad weather, the thought of being stuck in my pre-fabricated oil rig room waiting for a category 3 hurricane to move away is a tad unnerving.

Morris Architects, via Curbed LA

Filed under: Hotels and Accommodations