NonA Weekly: LIVING LARGE IN TINY SPACES 💥
Image by @maldo
Dear readers and friends,
Living in the Nakagin Capsule Tower was a fascinating experience for architecture enthusiasts 🏛️ seeking a unique place to stay. Previously located in Tokyo’s 🗾 upscale Ginza district, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was a striking example 💡 of the Metabolism architectural movement of the 1960s. The tower comprised 140 prefabricated capsules, each measuring 📏 just 2.5 meters wide and 4 meters long. Originally designed as a flexible and sustainable living space 🛋️ for young professionals, the tower’s capsules was mainly used as office spaces 💼, with a few available for short-term rentals 🛏️. While the capsules’ interior designs were outdated and basic, the tower’s unique design and historical significance made it a must-see 👀 for architecture aficionados visiting Tokyo.
1. HOW JAPAN UTILIZES CAPSULE HOTELS TO ACHIEVE BOTH FUNCTIONALITY AND RICH STAYING EXPERIENCES 🛎️
The capsule hotel is typically representative of the image 💭 that many people have of Japan, combining dense use of space, technical ingenuity, and a futuristic vibe. CAPSULE hotels, also known as pod hotels, are one of Japan’s best-known and unique 🛏️ types of lodgings.
2. INSIDE JAPAN’S CAPSULE TOWER 🔍
The Nakagin Capsule Tower in the heart ❤️ of Tokyo was iconic, featuring 140 retro tiny apartments built in the 1970’s. Sadly, the future of the capsule tower was not so great and it may be lost forever. Let’s go INSIDE and remember 🎥 of what it looked like.
3. SPACE CAPSULES FOR NOMADS OR WHO LIKES TO LIVE IN A BOX? 📦
Mobile housing containers and plug-in cities – can we still learn from the urban utopias of the 1960s and 1970s? Do concepts of MODULAR architecture still have an influence on building? 🤔 And what are the desires behind today’s trend towards “Tiny Houses”? 🏠
4. LEGACY OF JAPAN’S NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER 📜 LIVES ON IN RESTORED PODS
One of Tokyo’s most famous buildings was dismantled 🚧 due to asbestos fears. Now 23 of the CAPSULES have been saved for posterity. 🌟
5. NAGAKIN CAPSULE TOWER 🏗️
The Nagakin Capsule Tower is the first ☝️ built in 1972, building based on the idea of habitats capsules. Its architect, Kisho Kurokawa, conceived 🧠 this PROJECT as a mega-structure in which the habitable prefabricated modules are inserted, showing through their design ideas 🎨 interchangeability, recyclability and sustainability in architectural works.
6. 10 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN DESIGNING A CAPSULE HOTEL 📝
A capsule hotel, also known as a pod hotel, is a type of temporary accommodation facility developed in Japan. It features a large number of extremely small ‘rooms’ (CAPSULES) intended to provide cheap 💰, basic overnight accommodation for guests 🛏️ who do not require or who cannot afford the services offered by more conventional hotels.
7. THE CAPSULE LIVING UNIT RECONSIDERED A UTOPIA TRANSFORMED REALITY 🏙️
One of the solutions that emerged 💡 in the architectural discourse in response to the problems of overpopulation, shortage of land, and the increasing densification of cities was the concept for capsule-living units. Experimental proposals relating to such a theory have been presented and 📣 argued simultaneously in the West and in the Far East, but only in Japan the concept developed further leading to the creation of an unprecedented 🔥 typology: the CAPSULE hotel.
Stay creative and see you all next week! 👋
Daniela
