While living in Manhattan, Vipp’s CEO and 3rd generation owner, Kasper Egelund, had a dream of escaping the city with all the necessities and nothing more. Together with Vipp’s in-house design team and Danish architecture studio Arcgency, the vision was brought to life as a large-scale Vipp product, fully equipped and detailed down to the last screw.

But the commercial idea of selling a house like the company’s iconic bin soon faced the reality of immense logistical hurdles. “The interest was huge. It won awards and got an incredible amount of press, praised by all the right people and media across the world. But we didn’t sell a single unit,” says Kasper. Only one Shelter was eventually sold; to a family in West Virginia.

Reluctantly, Vipp made a U-turn. Instead of selling Shelters, they began renting it out, answering the many requests from people who simply wanted to stay in the Swedish outpost. 

That pivot laid the groundwork for the Vipp guesthouse concept - a string of bookable, one-of-a-kind guesthouses set in distinct destinations around the world.

The Vipp guesthouse concept presents a curated collection of one-of-a-kind getaways, each unveiling a locally rooted architectural archetype. Shortly following the Shelter came two guesthouses in Copenhagen: Vipp Loft, an urban apartment above the company’s headquarters, and Vipp Chimney House, set in a former water pumping station near the city’s northern waterfront.

However, it soon became clear that people weren’t just interested in architecture - they were seeking escapism, prompting Vipp to expand its guesthouses to a historic farmhouse in southern Denmark, a modernist stone house in the Andorran mountains, and a summer sanctuary in Puglia, Italy.

Recent additions include a beachside guesthouse in Cold Hawaii on Denmark’s west coast, a cantilevered tunnel structure on Bruny Island in Tasmania, and a restored townhouse in Lagrasse, a medieval village in the south of France.

Also, ephemeral guesthouses have seen the light of day: The Vipp Palazzo Monti was a pop-up fusion of ancient spirits and modern decor in the heart of renaissance palazzo; and the Vipp x Studio KO guesthouse proved to be a harmonious meeting between opposite design traditions.

Vipp’s ambition is to transform products from mere objects into design experiences. A silent closure, a subtle sound, a tactile touch, a dedicated detail, a material mastery can elevate a seemingly simple object into a sensory and enduring encounter.

The Vipp guesthouses are upscaled product experiences where products are merged with architecture, nature, art, and local culture in a holistic experience. In that sense, the project carries an aspiration to create meaningful product encounters by framing them in architectural and aesthetic settings. The Vipp products stay the same, but the architecture and surroundings make it a completely new design experience.

Embracing a different kind of hospitality, guests are invited to take their time – time to explore the solitude of being the only guest, time to be inspired by the sensory dialogue symbiotically shaped between object and space. Curated and furnished exclusively by Vipp, each guesthouse invites guests to live with the products - cook in the kitchen, eat at the table, relax on the sofa.