Archinect - News

Kisho Kurokawa-designed Capsule House K is now one of Japan's most coveted short-term rentals

2022-08-31T18:57:00-04:00

As private lodging, a maximum of seven individuals can stay per night, and they can use the kitchen to cook. [...] Kurokawa used the building, called Capsule House K, as a villa residence. His son, Mikio, started offering it for private lodging in May. “I hope visitors will spend a leisurely time here and enjoy being in one of the few existing Metabolism buildings,” said Mikio.

The "sister" of Tokyo's recently-demolished Nakagin Capsule Tower was finished the year after the erstwhile apartment building and is now maintained by architect Kisho Kurokawa's son Mikio and an outside company which manages the bookings. Pets are not allowed, but interested parties can reserve a stay starting at the (fairly reasonable) price of ¥14,300 (or $103 USD) a night for one person.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by 牧野友衛 Tomoe Makino (@tomoemakino)

An NFT version of the more famous Tokyo capsule tower is also up for sale until October 20th. Otherwise, fans of Metabolism might have to cough up some heftier change for one of the structure's original capsules, which some speculate could be about to hit the auction block soon.

$800-a-month sleeping pods? One company thinks they are the solution to California’s housing crisis

2022-05-20T18:41:00-04:00

A new Silicon Valley startup is taking the charge put forth by the recent expansion of ADUs and other non-traditional forms of accommodation in the uphill battle to provide affordable housing to the millions of Californians struggling to find a way forward.

Business Insider recently took a closeup look at the San Francisco-based Brownstone Shared Housing, an eight-month-old company co-founded by former state auditors James Stallworth and Christina Lennox, that has designed a new stackable sleeping pod currently being modeled within single-family homes in Bakersfield and Palo Alto.

Similar to the sleeping capsules common to urban Japanese hotels and resorts, the four-foot-tall spaces can be scaled to hold up to 14 people and are being marketed by the company as an alternative to the high-rent, low-availability housing situation typical in the areas adjacent to Stanford University.

Japanese capsule hotel gets a Scandinavian spa treatment from Schemata Architects

2018-01-25T14:38:00-05:00

The Japanese answer to the hostel, the capsule hotel, debuted in Osaka in the late 70s as a way to provide cheap, basic overnight accommodation to businessman. Stripped down to the bare necessities of a hotel room, individual pods the size of a single bed are stacked together while also offering other amenities like high-speed internet access, bathing facilities, toiletries, etc. Traditionally, the budget accommodation has had a shabby reputation. Today, however, a slew of second wave capsule hotels are trending towards modern, sleek and stylish designs.

Photo Credit: Nacasa & Partners Inc.

One of the latest additions to Japan's expanding luxury capsule hotel market is Nine Hours, the capsule hotel chain—named for the maximum length of stay—that recently renovated ºC (Do-C) Ebisu. Tokyo-based firm Schemata Architects has headed the overhaul of the aging hotel, which will be the first renovation project for the hotel chain.

Photo Credit: Nacasa & P...

Temporary wooden ferris-wheel hotel proposed for the Seine River

2015-10-30T21:18:00-04:00

French architects [SCAU] are planning to build a 'water wheel hotel' on the banks of the Seine, which resembles the London Eye but with 'room capsules' that would rotate constantly. ...[However,] the wheel hotel is not intended to be a permanent structure. 'It is made of wood and it will only take four days to assemble or dismantle it, so it could be transported by barge and re-erected elsewhere on the river' [said Maxime Barbier of SCAU]

Nine hours in a capsule: sleeping in a sci-fi hotel that wants you to leave

2013-11-11T12:31:00-05:00

The hotel's name refers to the idea that you'd only need to spend nine hours there — a radical concept in a world of lodging that offers a host of amenities to tempt you away from the place you're actually meant to be visiting. But the people behind Nine Hours believe you're better off spending as little time as possible under their roof: just one hour to get ready for bed, seven hours to sleep, and one hour to get up in the morning.