Page 111 - AIT0619_E-Paper

Entwurf • Design Schemata Architects, JP-Tokyo
Bauherr • Client Capsule Hotel, JP-Tokyo
Standort • Location JP-Tokyo
Nutzfläche • Floor space 892 m 2
Fotos • Photos Nacasa & Partners Inc.
Mehr Infos auf Seite • More infos on page 174

CAPSULE HOTEL

IN TOKYO

Capsule hotels are something specifically Japanese –
the first opened in Osaka in 1979. Business travellers
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above all use these lodgings with small sleeping cap-
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sules, sometimes also just for a short rest, to inexpen-
sively stay overnight in large cities. Schemata archi-
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tects refurbished an already outdated building in
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Tokyo and interpreted it in a particularly modern way.
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T he location is not all that unusual for a capsule hotel: °C sauna +
sleep is situated next to the eastern exit of Gotanda Station in Shi-
nagawa in Tokyo, close to the red-light district and it is – also not un-
usual – reserved exclusively for men. Yet there is nothing disreputable
about the building. It is in any case unusual, also for the operator

Nine Hours, that an existing building is being refurbished and that a
new one is not being constructed. In a first step, the eight-story former

Shibuya Hotel was gutted. According to Jo Nagasaka, this resulted in
Untergeschoss • Basement floor
Erdgeschoss • Ground floor a cave-like structure which the architect and his team used as the
basis for their design. Integrated into the thus exposed and subse-
quently left untreated walls, the beige-coloured sleeping pods of fibre
glass were conserved as a reminiscence of the old building. In combi-
nation, the thus resulting massive concrete look of the circulation
areas and the slightly dusty appearance of the sleeping places add up
to an extraordinary and yet harmonious overall design. In an unob-
trusive way, this design succeeds in linking modern, minimalist sur-
faces with retro details. On the lower level, more changes were made:
The former public bath now has a modern sauna landscape with a
shower room and its various heat intensities are separated by the
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stepped floor. In a long and narrow space is the wooden sauna which
is connected with the showers by a zone completely covered in trans-
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parent synthetic panels from the floor to the wall all the way to the
ceiling. Besides metal lockers or storage options assembled from in-
, *&(/ , *&(/ dustrial boxes, however, the sanitary area particularly captivates with
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the room graphics used. Icons for explaining the sauna functions such
as the identification of the respective temperature zones in degrees
Celsius on the layouts and site maps attached to the concrete walls
make getting one’s bearings and using the premises easy even beyond

any language barriers – and, at the same time, the latter explains the
name given to the hotel. In the very heart of the metropolis of Tokyo,
a completely unusual hotel has thus been designed which is sure to
st
1. bis 5. Obergeschoss • Upper floor level +1 to +5 1. Dachgeschoss • Attic floor level +1 catapults capsule hotels into the 21 century.

AIT 6.2019 • 111