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Kisho Kurokawa’s Nagakin Capsule Tower has been under threat of demolition for a decade now. The icon of the metabolist movement was also an important model for tiny living, with so much crammed into such a small space. It was an innovative example of plug-in architecture, where each apartment module could be removed and upgraded. [Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com]
From Wikipedia:
The icon of Metabolism, Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was erected in the Ginza district of Tōkyō in 1972 and completed in just 30 days.[51] Prefabricated in Shiga Prefecture in a factory that normally built shipping containers, it is constructed of 140 capsules plugged into two cores that are 11 and 13 stories in height. The capsules contained the latest gadgets of the day and were built to house small offices and pieds-à-terre for Tōkyō salarymen.[52]
The capsules are constructed of light steel welded trusses covered with steel sheeting mounted onto the reinforced concrete cores. The capsules are 2.5 metres wide and four metres long with a 1.3 metre diameter window at one end. The units originally contained a bed, storage cabinets, a bathroom, a colour television set, clock, refrigerator and air conditioner, although optional extras such as a stereo were available. Although the capsules were designed with mass production in mind there was never a demand for them.[52]Nobuo Abe, was a senior manager, managing one of the design divisions on the construction of the Nakagin Capsule Tower.
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