Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972

This 37 year old metabolist residential and commercial structure has been sentenced to demolition by its residents. Unhappy with the asbestos, earthquake resilience and general ware of the building the residents are living in capsules 12 years over their 25 year design life. The service core however is designed to last 100 years allowing the living capsules to be replaced.


There are two major shortcomings in this building.

1- The capsules are attached in such a way that to remove/replace any capsule the capsule above must also be removed.
Capsules should be individulay replacable, the control of the individulal, not a beurocratic gridlock.

2- There is no way for an individual owner to purchase a new capsule.
There should be a capsule market, manufacturers promoting capsules with various different layouts and functions. This would allow individuals, who are the focus in the metabolism movement, to customise their space and express themselves.

An analysis I did of the building in semester 1 of 5th year.