Designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa, the iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo has become something of an Instagram pilgrimage for architecture enthusiasts. But as the building fell into a state of disrepair, the Metabolist landmark has long been in danger of demolition and the final decision is to be made by the building’s management society by vote
The Nakagin Tower is made up of 140 self-contained prefabricated capsules. Photography: Alberto Strada
The iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower has been in danger of demolition for more than a decade, but it seems decision time is upon us, as the verdict surrounding its future will soon be announced in the coming year. The landmark building designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972 is something of a symbol for metabolism, the post-war Japanese architecture movement that explored modern architecture, especially of high density, through the lens of organic growth.
The tower sits in Ginza, right in the heart of Tokyo, a locale originally conceived to target elite businessmen seeking conveniently located private or rented accommodation or offices, towards the end of what was a high growth period for Japan. Kurokawa planned to change each capsule every 25 years, but his plan never materialised due to logistical obstacles (owners timing preferences and financial complications). As a result, while some 100 of the 140 capsules are still in use, some as residences, others as office space or creative studios, the remaining 40 are abandoned and lie in ruins.
The compact bathrooms come with small bathtubs
Back in 2007 (also the year of Kurokawa’s sad passing), an announcement was made by the building’s management society (which comprises of the owners) that the Nakagin Capsule Tower was to be demolished to give way to a new apartment building, but the project’s developer went bankrupt because of the global economic downturn at the time; and since then, the tower’s fate has been up in the air. This led to a huge rift between owners (capsules were sold individually in the past), who were eventually divided into two camps – one to save the tower, because of its architectural value, and one to demolish and rebuild, cashing in on the land value.
‘We are in a critical situation, but there is a last hope, and I’m trying to make it happen,’ says Tatsuyuki Maeda, head of the ‘save’ group, arguing for the building’s preservation and restoration. The final decision will be made by the building’s management society through a vote. Maeda has been slowly acquiring capsules (15 are currently in his possession), trying to increase his voting power and promote owner change to support his cause.
According to him, the Nakagin group (the original land owner) gave up on trying to resolve this situation and sold their title and some of the capsules that they owned to a real estate company. The real estate company proceeded to keep buying more capsules and now owns around 70 of them, which gives them majority-voting rights. Furthermore, they blocked future capsule trading, putting Maeda’s side to a huge disadvantage.
‘I like to put the zeitgeist into my work, and be fulfilled when later generations understand how my time was by seeing my work’ — Kisho Kurokawa
‘Currently, a European company is showing interest in buying outright the land and capsules, effectively saving the building. We plan to soon remove one of the capsules to test the strength of the main axis, which holds each capsule through four bolts. It also helps to estimate the costs for exchanging all the capsules for new ones in the future. I had also been negotiated with some Japanese companies, but they all declined taking this on. We, the capsule owners in the ‘save’ party want to keep our capsules of course, but if this European company can keep this building and replace the capsules to new ones, we’d be happy to leave and let them do it.’
In Japan, neither the government nor local authority usually intervene in the affairs of private property, and in order to register a building as a protected monument, they need to be at least 50 years old. The Nakagin Capsule Tower is now 48 years old, but even when it becomes 50, permission is still required of all the owners in order to submit it for monument status. ‘Nothing can be done with this scattered divisional ownership situation. Thanks to that, it has been possible for the building to survive until now, but it also means that it cannot be restored. If the Nakagin group had full ownership, this building would have been gone twenty years ago,’ says Maeda.
The round windows can’t be opened (they used to come with blinds but these are no longer made)
‘Summer is too hot and winter is too cold, the original air conditioning system and the hot water supply have long been broken, but it’s still great having a space in Kisho Kurokawa’s masterpiece. I cannot do anything more than pay my rent, so I have to go with the flow. But when they decide to demolish this building, I’d like to take this round window with me as a memento,’ says Takumi Miyamoto, who moved in his capsule this year and uses it as the base for his interior design business.
To see the building in the flesh is no doubt fascinating for the architecture enthusiast, but also shocking. Some of the rooms are damaged badly and have long been abandoned, their metal doors rotten and broken, ceilings and walls peeling off and the asbestos inside the walls revealed. Miyamoto says to eliminate the asbestos alone and restore the damage requires so much money (more than a million yen just for the 2m x 5m capsule ceiling) that some of the capsule owners are simply waiting for it to be demolished.
So will Kurokawa’s metabolist gem soon be a long lost part of architectural history? Tokyo is famous for its scrap and re-build culture, and that’s also part of the urban ‘organic growth’ the Metabolists talked about. ‘I like to put the zeitgeist into my work, and be fulfilled when later generations understand how my time was by seeing my work,’ once said Kurokawa in an old interview.
Tired of sky-high rents? One Japanese company is offering up multi-story coastal homes an hour from Tokyo for less than $200 a month.
This funky three-story property is part of rental company Hobimo's program, and is located one minute from the Chiba seaside.Hobimo
- One Japanese company is looking for a team of reviewers to live in its properties for three months at a time.
- The rent is only $200 for an entire seaside home in Chiba, just one hour from Tokyo's city center.
- In exchange for the low rents, the reviewers must provide feedback and make social media posts on their stays.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories
.
That isn't a pipe dream, because one Japanese home rental company is opening up spots for 20 lucky people to live in the seaside town of Chiba for three months.
Japanese pop culture site Sora News 24 first reported on the program started by rental company Hobimo, which started taking applications this month. It is looking for 10 groups of two people each to reside in its seaside properties.
During the stint, the reviewers will have to live in one of the company's properties in Chiba, which is an hour out from Tokyo. And if relaxing in a huge beachfront home somehow isn't enough of a lure, the prefecture has loads to offer — including two Disney parks, a 40-mile coastline of sandy beaches, and plenty of spots for hiking, including up the scenic Mount Nokogiri.
Throughout the review period, the teams are required to provide feedback to the company on the property and document their three-month stay on social media. In exchange for their work, rent will only cost a reviewer $181 per month.
It's a pretty sweet deal, considering that 300 square-foot two-bedroom apartments in the Chiba prefecture are going for around $450 to $600 a month.
Hobimo advertises its properties on its Facebook page as repurposed akiya, or unoccupied houses. The company's website notes that it has properties in the Shizuoka, Yamagata, Hyogo, Kochi, and Miyazaki prefectures too. These houses are a little pricier, though, and go for around $360 a month, utilities included.
One property in Shizuoka, for instance, boasts gorgeous mountain views from its onsen-style bath.
The company is also offering these cheap rental rates while akiya located in the Japanese countryside are being sold off for a couple of hundred dollars each. Cities like Tochigi and Nagano have "akiya banks" run by the municipal governments, which lists vacant homes for as low as $455.
These attempts to get people into empty homes come while Japan faces a glut of some 8.4 million empty and abandoned homes, some of them crumbling and in derelict condition. Insider reported this June on the phenomenon in Wakayama, where the city's government is struggling with a fast-declining population and attempting to fill the staggering 18.8% of empty homes across the prefecture.
Rethinking housing priorities in Japan in the wake of COVID-19
With remote work likely to remain as one of the pandemic’s lasting legacies, developers are coming up with innovative new ways of meeting people’s expectations toward accommodation
Floor space often comes at a premium in Japan, especially in urban centers where land is scarce and property prices are high. That has resulted in tiny homes and apartments cluttering popular neighborhoods in Tokyo and other major cities, occasionally leading to negative stereotyping of the Japanese as workaholics who only come back to their cramped rooms to sleep at the end of a long day.
The pandemic, however, has scrambled the real estate market as quarantines, states of emergencies and self-imposed isolation prompt millions to work from home and rethink their housing priorities.
Four hundred and twenty-eight of 500 teleworkers who responded to a survey conducted by job site operator Biz Hits in February said they were working either from their living room or bedroom. Almost 45% said they weren’t satisfied with their current workspace, and about a third said they wanted their own home office more than anything.
The mass proliferation of remote work may be one of the most influential legacies of COVID-19. From where and how we live and work, it has opened up new doors to innovative designs and features in housing, a trend that experts say is here to stay.
“Homes in Japan used to primarily function as places where people went back to sleep after work,” says Chihiro Shimizu, a professor at the University of Tokyo and Nihon University and an expert on real estate economics. “For many, they now also serve as an office, leisure and relaxation space, as well as a gateway that connects them to local neighborhoods, where they shop and dine much more often than before.”
As working and spending more time at home becomes commonplace, expectations toward housing are changing, Shimizu says. Properties that fulfilled their purpose when their residents were out working during the day may no longer be capable of accommodating the needs of a new generation of remote workers.
“That said, people won’t be able to enjoy the perks of cities — good schools and hospitals, nice bars and restaurants, and plenty of places to shop — if they relocate to the sticks,” Shimizu says. “So it’s a matter of finding the right balance.”
Of course, not everyone is working remotely. Those in the service industry, for example, as well as small and midsize businesses without the adequate infrastructure in place to support remote work aren’t able to adopt the new work style. In fact, the ratio of those working remotely remained at around one-fifth of the workforce over much of the past year, according to The Japan Productivity Center.
The association has been conducting regular surveys since May 2020, when Tokyo and other prefectures with high virus counts were coming out of the nation’s first state of emergency. The ratio stood at 31.5% that month, but dropped to 20.2% by July, and has been hovering around 20% ever since. In April, it was 19.2%.
A fifth of the workforce, however, is still significant enough to prompt house and apartment builders to offer new living solutions.
An exterior image of one-story homes being offered by Panasonic Homes Co. The residences are being marketed as adapting to the so-called new normal, allowing residents plenty of space to cook, work and mingle with family, according to the company. | COURTESY OF PANASONIC HOMES CO.
In April, Panasonic Homes Co., a fully-owned subsidiary of Prime Life Technologies Corp., a joint venture between Panasonic Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., began offering housing design options centered around private and semi-private workspaces, disaster resiliency and cutting-edge ventilation systems.
A series of residences in its “Casart” lineup featuring both one— and two-story houses with central air-conditioning systems are being marketed as homes adapting to the so-called new normal, allowing residents plenty of space to cook, work and mingle with family, according to the company.
“Demand for one-story homes in the suburbs is rising amid the pandemic. They are especially popular among young families in their 20s and 30s, many who grew up living in apartments and who are not used to staircases,” says Ken Kamata, a manager in Panasonic Homes’ marketing division.
As families spend more time together, cramped living and dining spaces have become an issue, Kamata says. A one-story design allows plenty of open floor space, while lofts and step-down floors provide some privacy while also maintaining a sense of connection, he says.
An example of a living room in the “Casart” lineup of one-story houses being offered by Panasonic Homes Co. The homes are being marketed as adapting to the so-called new normal, allowing residents plenty of space to cook, work and mingle with family, according to the company. | COURTESY OF PANASONIC HOMES CO.
Meanwhile, the homebuilder’s two-story Casart Resilience series is constructed based on quake-resilient architecture and features a built-in 24-hour ventilation system employing high-efficiency particulate air filters that can change out the air 1½ to 4½ times an hour even with all the windows closed.
The waves of infections and states of emergency over the past year, however, saw potential homeowners hesitate to physically visit housing agents.
A rendering of a private workspace being offered in homes built by Daiwa House Industry Co., targeting the growing number of remote workers. | COURTESY OF DAIWA HOUSE INDUSTRY CO.
According to the results of a survey released last May by real estate site operator Lifull Co., 20.4% of 20,016 respondents who were planning to either rebuild their homes or buy new houses said they had refrained from visiting realtors due to virus risks. That, in turn, has hurt the revenue of homebuilders.
“There’s a growing need for online options that allow consumers to plan for their homes without face-to-face interactions,” says Panasonic Homes’ Saya Miura, who is in charge of Vesse, a series of budget homes that can be partially designed online by users answering simple lifestyle questions and taking part in virtual housing simulations backed by Google Cloud’s AI tools.
Hygiene is also a priority, says Aya Sato of Daiwa House Industry Co., Japan’s largest homebuilder.
Sato, a director in the company’s single family housing business division, says Daiwa House has been offering homes with sinks and closets strategically placed so residents can wash their hands upon returning home and change their clothes before entering living spaces.
The company has also been advertising homes with private studies and workstations, but not all potential home owners can afford the extra space, especially in urban areas where a few meters of land can cost hundreds of thousands of yen.
“That’s why we also offer studies in small corners and dead spaces under staircases,” Sato says.
The pandemic is driving thousands out of Tokyo. The total number of people moving out of the city surpassed those moving in by 16,938 between April and December, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The capital also saw more people moving out than moving in during the eight months between July and February.
Sato says she has noticed an uptick of clients buying homes on the outskirts of the capital in areas such as Tama, a suburb of western Tokyo, and Shonan, a coastal region in Tokyo’s neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture.
“Many people no longer need to prioritize commute time when choosing a place to live,” Sato says. “But rather than taking a big leap and moving to the countryside, it seems they are attracted to areas that have good access to the city while boasting an abundance of nature.”
For those drawn to the convenience of the city, developers are offering apartments with private teleworking booths and shared workspaces for their inhabitants.
The Grand Marina Tokyo is a three-tower project being developed by Mitsui Fudosan Residential Co. in Kachidoki, a bayside area in central Tokyo. | COURTESY OF MITSUI FUDOSAN RESIDENTIAL CO.
In September, Mitsui Fudosan Residential Co. began selling contracts for Park Tower Kachidoki Mid, a 45-story, 159-meter-tall, 1,100-unit residential and commercial tower being constructed in Kachidoki, a bayside area in central Tokyo. Next to it will stand Park Tower Kachidoki South, a 58-story, 189-meter-tall highrise with 1,655 apartments that is poised to go on sale this summer. Slated for completion in August 2023, the skyscrapers will form part of a three-tower project.
Kachidoki Mid features a 300-square-meter co-working space on the third floor that comes complete with WiFi, private work rooms, a copy machine, a vending machine and a telephone booth. There will also be personal fitness studios equipped with flat screens and speakers, as well as a guest room and a private salon with an essential-oil diffuser and coffee machine for residents to use.
Jun Sugahara, a project leader in Mitsui Fudosan Residential’s planning and sales group, says the firm was initially aiming to start accepting reservations in March last year, but delayed the rollout by six months as the number of new virus infections surged.
“Initially we thought this would be temporary, but when the first state of emergency was declared, we realized we may be in for the long haul,” he says.
“We also noticed that demand for remote work was growing, while people working from home were getting interested in health and fitness. So we decided to tweak our plan to accommodate those needs.”
While common areas in apartment buildings typically emphasize aesthetically pleasing designs over practicality, that may change, Sugahara says.
“For example, lounges would often feature low tables to make them seem more spacious, but that’s detrimental to those wanting to use them for work. New apartments may decide to prioritize remote workers’ needs rather than looks.”
Conference rooms will be available for residents of Park Tower Kachidoki Mid, a 45-story, 159-meter-tall, 1,100-unit residential and commercial tower being constructed in Kachidoki, a bayside area in central Tokyo. | COURTESY OF MITSUI FUDOSAN RESIDENTIAL CO.
Meanwhile, office space has also been undergoing a slew of changes as companies reduce their real estate footprints and workers spend more time at home.
According to a trend forecast released by office design and renovation firm Vis Co. in February, 31% of the 48 designers it employs raised communication as a keyword when contemplating the post-pandemic workplace. More space will be granted for gatherings and investments will be made in tech infrastructure to ensure smoother online and offline communications, the report said.
Workplaces will also be decentralized, with more firms adopting satellite offices and shared offices, while floor plans will become flexible, the report said.
“Hybrid work models in which employees can continue to work remotely for part of the week will likely continue even after the pandemic,” says Sayaka Fukuda, a spokesperson for Vis. “That means these new design concepts will stick.”
And for those who will be working remotely for the unforeseeable future, the challenge lies in how to make their home work environment as healthy and optimal as possible with limited resources.
According to BackTech Inc., the number of consultations its back pain management app received for stiff shoulders, back pain and headaches, among other symptoms, quadrupled to around 20,000 in September compared to February last year — before the first state of emergency was declared.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.