This is a new one on me but perhaps it's quite well known. There are some photos in today's South China Morning Post in Hong Kong of a hostel near Udomsuk Skytrain station on the Sukhumvit line. Named the Sook Station Hostel, it has a jail theme. And it seems both to be popular and for a hostel quite expensive. I checked rates on a couple of booking sites and they are around US$50 for single accommodation in a twin or quadruple room. But if you book 4 people into a quadruple, it seems to come to only $81. Apart from the bars on the windows and the dingy looking corridors, the linen looks quite luxurious and the public area very pleasant. Wonder if they have cute guards making regular rounds?
Forgot to add that on check-in you get your mug shot taken, are given a pair of black and white striped pyjamas and a prison number instead of a key. At checkout you're given a criminal record as a keepsake! But there are some luxuries like a rooftop terrace, an outdoor hot tub and a relaxation room. The owner decided to model the hostel after his favourite movie "The Shawshank Redemption". Well I wonder if they play the duet from Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" every evening!
In a similar vein ... a long time ago there was a series of photos somewhere on the internet of a barber shop in Pattaya where all of the barber chairs were commodes/toilets ... I recall when seeing the photos that it was a clever idea ... not long ago I tried a GOOGLE search, but could find no reference to the photos ... was surprised as this was certainly not something that I imagined.
Taking the barber reference a little further, when I first started visiting Taipei 30 years ago a candy striped barber's pole outside indicated that inside you received not just a haircut and shave but a blow job whilst you were at it! These were partly places of prostitution.
Which again kinda proves that TH is mostly copy-catting. These ''themed'' hoStels (do note-its not a hotel!) are kinda of kinky ''in'' since at least 3-4 yrs here in mainland EURope, also quite a few, boutique or not, normal hotels have opened in former prisons, a little or a lot rebuilt since they kept inmates behind bars. In Eastern-EUR they tend to makeit even a little more real-former-life, by putting in all old communist/stasi/KGB-whatever parafernalia and assumed other interrogations before they let you in as ''kept guest''.