Capsule Hotels

[ where the sun lands ]

Street windows belong to the shared floors rather than to the modules, so daylight stops in the lounge and the stair. The building stands among neighbours of much the same height on a narrow lane. What reaches the upper storeys comes over the rooftops, not along the street.

[ where the shade is kept ]

Each module is a closed box with a curtain or a panel across its opening, so the sleeping space stays dark whatever the floor around it is doing. Corridors between the stacks are narrow and windowless. The lane outside is shaded by the buildings on both of its sides.

[ what stays lit ]

Every module carries a small reading lamp, which makes the stacks read as a row of separate lights along the corridor. The shared floors keep their lamps low, and shopfronts light the lane outside.

[ where the sun lands ]

Central-city walls surround the building, and the taller neighbours decide how much reaches its windows. The capsules themselves have none, so daylight is a matter of the lounge and the washrooms. The light outside is strong, and almost none of it gets past the corridor wall.

[ where the shade is kept ]

Panels close each unit off from the corridor, and the interior finish is dark and matt throughout. Stacked in two levels, the capsules shade one another. Outside, awnings run along the street front, as they do on most of the older blocks in this part of the centre.

[ what stays lit ]

A lamp in each capsule and a strip along the corridor floor are the whole scheme. From the street the building shows ordinary lit windows, while the office towers around it hold most of the light here.

[ where the sun lands ]

One face of the cube is glass and the other three are solid, so the whole of the daylight depends on which way that panel has been turned. Standing in a field, a yard or a hall, each unit takes exactly what its site is able to give it.

[ where the shade is kept ]

The three closed faces do all of the shading, and a blind covers the glazed one when it is not wanted. There is no second opening to balance the first. Whatever stands over the site, whether trees, a roof or a wall, becomes the rest of the shade.

[ what stays lit ]

A low light inside shows the glass panel from outside as one bright rectangle in an otherwise dark setting. Sites are usually chosen away from street lighting, so the cube is the only lit thing there.

[ where the sun lands ]

Deep inside the terminal, the units sit well away from the curtain walls that light the concourse. Daylight belongs to the gates rather than to the corridors behind them. Guests cross a bright hall and enter a wing where the outside is no longer part of the plan.

[ where the shade is kept ]

Each capsule closes with a panel, and the walls are lined to keep noise and light out of the sleeping space. The corridor is kept deliberately dim. This is a place built for people whose sleep does not line up with the sky over the airfield.

[ what stays lit ]

Small fixed lamps light each capsule, and the corridor holds a low, even level throughout the wing. Beyond it the concourse stays lit, and the apron outside carries the aircraft stands and the masts above them.