Pod Living at Its Finest

[Ian David]

Pod Living at Its Finest

By Momus
02:00 AM Dec, 05, 2006

I've just arranged a one-month apartment exchange with a friend in Tokyo, an Australian artist called Alin Huma.

For a month next spring he'll live with his partner and young child in my Berlin apartment, 538 square feet, while my girlfriend and I will occupy his Tokyo pod pad -- just 225 square feet. Despite halving my living space, I feel like I'm getting the better deal.

<snip>

The Capsule Tower's architect, Kisho Kurakawa, is a Metabolist. From the early '60s, these Japanese architects modeled their buildings on organic forms able -- in theory, anyway -- to adapt rapidly and radically to changes in the city's ecosystem. One way to do this was to use prefabricated capsules, "minimum dwelling units" which could snap in and out of larger structures. These pods referred back to the Bauhaus idea of the existenzminimum -- the basic minimum space required to sustain human existence -- but also to sci-fi-like developments then being proposed in other countries -- the Plug-In City, for instance, an idea from U.K. conceptual architects Archigram.

Thirty-five years later, though, all is not well at the Nakagin Capsule Tower. Last year The Independent newspaper reported that "residents in the country's most famous experiment in living and working in tiny pods have become so disgruntled with their accommodations that they are plotting its demolition."

Defective water pipes have proved hard to repair, asbestos is rife and not one of the capsules, designed to be replaced when they malfunctioned or got outdated, has ever been switched.

For aficionados of Space Age experimental architecture, though, these "roomic cubes" (there's a show unit open on the ground floor) remain highly glamorous. They still have their console-flush original 1972 built-in hi-fi systems, televisions and calculators and their original molded-plastic bathroom units.

More:
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72231-0.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. same idea as "Tiny Houses"

but you can put your tiny house anywhere

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses.htm#

[nashville_brook]

3. why is it, i could so much easier live in the "Tiny House"... also "Katrina Cottages"

looking at both styles, I could actually do the Tiny House, but i'm sure the Pod would send me into a clinical depression. seems like the conceit of the Pod is that people must conform to the "synthetic hive" in order to live on their tiny urban island (Ginza); while the Tiny House seems to want to be plunked-down in a lush mountain valley.

here's a link to a story about the similarly conceived "Katrina Cottages."




http://realestate.msn.com/buying/Article_CSM.aspx?cp-documentid=1209895

[Nihil]

5. Not in the UK though

You need a minimum of two doors between a toilet and a kitchen.

[Warpy]

2. A well designed small space is easier to live in than a poorly

designed large space. When I traded my single wide trailer in for a post WWII tract house that is now in the inner city (and convenient to everything, the point), I sacrificed well planned living space for something that is essentially an unplanned series of boxes. Although I nearly doubled my square footage, this place feels much smaller than the trailer did.

I'm not sure I could handle the porthole window and that reel to reel tape deck, though, and there's no place for my rug loom to sit. The pod looks well planned in other areas, though.

If I could have plunked my trailer down on an empty lot in this part of town, I certainly would have. I miss it.

[NMDemDist2]

4. i concur, after living in my single wide and a half (18' width) mobile

now for 6 months, i am really appreciating the layout more and more

and you were right about having guests on the other end of the house being nice, we put up a spring loaded closet pole and hung a decorative shower curtain across the hallway and they had privacy for going from the guest room to the bathroom

worked out great! :bounce:

[silverweb]

6. An older version of Spacebox.

http://www.spacebox.info/index-eng.htm

They actually look quite liveable.