Capsule Hotels

A Copenhagen block is what stands outside, with pavement, bicycle lanes and buildings of a similar height. Street trees are planted along the road. Nothing wild grows here; the green is city planting and it is kept that way. The nearest open water and park are a walk away.

The city arrives as sound and as light in the shared spaces rather than through the hubs themselves. The lounge takes the street windows and the daylight that comes with them. The hubs open onto one internal corridor and carry their own controlled lighting. Danish timber finishes run through the shared rooms.

The hub shell keeps corridor light and neighbouring sound out of each sleeping space. Street glazing and the depth of the building hold traffic noise in the lounge rather than in the hubs, and blinds keep late summer daylight outside.

Singapore's Chinatown starts immediately at the door: shophouse fronts, five-foot ways, shops and traffic. The building is one of a terrace and shares its side walls. Planting is limited to street trees and pots. Any park worth the name is somewhere else in the city, not here.

The shophouse plan itself brings the street inside, because the front rooms open toward it. Daylight reaches the middle of the deep plan through the shared spaces. Capsules are set back from the frontage on the upper floors. The original timber and tile of the building are kept visible.

Solid capsule panels keep the light and movement of the shared floor out of each bed. The depth of the shophouse holds street noise near the front, and the sealed envelope keeps humid outside air away from the sleeping levels.

Shinjuku packs its buildings tight around this address, and the street is narrow between them. Signs, rail lines and shopfronts fill the view at ground level. There is no greenery outside the door, and that is an honest description rather than an omission. A large park lies elsewhere in the ward.

Very little of the outside is brought in, and that is the design. Capsules are identical, closed and lit from within on a controlled cycle. Shared floors handle washing and storage separately from sleep. Daylight is admitted only to the entrance and lounge, where the street is visible.

The capsule shell and the floor layout keep noise and light out of the sleeping tube almost entirely. The building envelope holds the sound of Shinjuku at street level, and the separation of wet floors keeps damp air away from the capsules.

Tsukiji surrounds the building with market streets, food stalls and low commercial blocks. The former fish market stands nearby and still sets the character of the quarter. Concrete and pavement cover the ground. The river and its planted banks are a short walk east, but not outside the door.

The quarter comes in through the entrance and the shared floors rather than the cabins. Cabins take their form from an aircraft interior, with fixed dimensions and a curtain instead of a door. Shared bathing floors are large and communal. Signage and lighting keep the same plain finish throughout.

Curtains and cabin walls keep light out but not sound, so the layout puts the sleeping floors away from the entrance. The envelope holds market noise at street level, and the separate bathing floors keep steam away from the cabins.