Capsule hotels have served a wide range of clientele who needed a cheap, no-frills place to stay while on business trips or a place to crash if they missed the last train home after a night on the town. During the country’s prolonged recession they also came to serve as urban shelters for the “sarari man” (salaried businessmen) unable to find work or afford their own place. Many of these miniature-roomed hotels, a boomtown phenomenon of Japan’s “bubble economy,” have now been turned into cheap transitory housing – a kind of halfway house – for homeless jobseekers hoping to change their fortunes.

 

As the Japanese economy seems to have entered a state of rigor mortis, so has the reputation of capsule hotels. In the eighties, they were a product and symbol of Japan’s economic boom, marked by a decade of dazzling wealth, conspicuous consumption, and decadence. Now the aging, un-refurbished hotels blight Japan’s urban landscape and have become emblematic of the country’s declining economy. And the news doesn’t get better.

 

The New York Times writer Hiroko Tabuchi recently chronicled the lives of jobless sarari man subsisting in a capsule hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, exposing a subterranean world of long-term capsule dwellers set adrift in tough economic times (Jan. 2, 2010). A few days later (Jan. 8, 2010), CNN’s Kyung Lah brought her film crew into a capsule hotel to highlight the plight of yet more unemployed workers.

 

Keisuke Yui, a young Tokyo hotelier, is hoping to change the tarnished reputation of capsule hotels. Last December, he opened the fledgling 9h – Nine Hours (nain awaasu) – a “luxury capsule hotel” in Kyoto’s bustling Teramachi-dori (Temple District Street), popular with locals and tourists alike. Fully aware of how oxymoronic the concept seems, Yui explained that even though magazines (not him) have been describing 9h as a luxury capsule hotel, he’s “not really thinking luxurious, but more about providing good service.” And he simply hopes to help redeem the image of the capsule hotel.

 

Yui is no stranger to the business. His father launched the Capsule Inn Akihabara in 1989 and operated what became recognized as the prototypal capsule hotel for eleven years before his death. Yui had to quit his job as a venture capitalist to take over his father’s hotel but closed it last year to open a new kind of capsule hotel – not targeted at revelling sarari man, but at foreign travellers.

 

His plan is to make his hotel into what he described as a “sleeping hub” for tourists. He borrows from the concept of boutique hotels in London and New York, and avoids rehashing the traditional model. In any case, he said “most people travel to Kyoto not for accommodation but to see temples or the Gion Festival.” So he hatched the nine-hour “transit stay” idea for tourists to sleep comfortably and efficiently.

 

To him, Kyoto, not urban centres such as Tokyo or Osaka, is the perfect place for 9h. In his press release, he stated that Kyoto “embodies originality in Japan” and “change always happens in an outlying region.” In choosing the ancient capital, he is also deliberately breaking away from the blotted history of capsule hotels. Even the name 9h defies precedent by not being prefixed by “Capsule Inn.”

 

To realize his plan of opening a boutique capsule hotel, he needed a designer who shares his vision. He eventually found Fumie Shibata of Design Studio S in Tokyo and asked her to help him visualize his idea. At first he only approached her to create a new capsule unit but after meeting Shibata, decided to ask her to draw up a plan for the entire hotel, including interior details and overall design concepts.

 

Shibata envisioned a seamless wall inserted with glowing capsules, “a simple design with a hole, or cave, in a black wall.” The result is a minimal and monochrome space using only simple but clear typography. Her team also designed all the products and amenities in 9h, and even spent a couple of years experimenting to perfect a silicon-free shampoo. Sustainability is one of her main concerns. “9h wouldn’t be fleetingly fashionable,” she said. “When I create something I always want to improve design.”

 

In their heyday, capsule hotels were avant-garde constructs. The Nakagin Capsule Tower, built in 1972 by Kisho Kurokawa, the legendary architect and a founder of the “Japanese Metabolism” movement in the 1950s, was considered the prototype for capsule architecture. The ‘Metabolists’ imagined a post-war urbanism where the people live in mutable housing. They believed buildings should be organic in form and function, and adhered to the principles of ecological and sustainable architecture.

 

Like Peter Cook’s Archigram in London, many of the Metabolists concepts were only on paper but their philosophy altered Japan’s urban landscape. In 1979, Kurokawa completed the Capsule Inn Osaka, the first hotel of its kind in Japan. Yui believes the fundamental idea behind capsule hotels is sound but poor management has led to their current decrepit state. To return to the Metabolist’s more glamorous past, and to attract media attention, Shibata and Yui premiered 9h at Axis Gallery in Roppongi.

 

Australian tourist, Trefor Morgan, an overnight guest at 9h, had a pleasant experience. As an engineer and self-professed nerd, Morgan found the gadgets, graphics and check-in system of 1 (shower) + 7 (sleep) + 1 (rest) = 9h concept fun. “It was very modern and space-agey,” said Morgan. “From a geek’s point of view, it was very nice.”

 

He had read about capsule hotels and wanted to experience living in one while travelling Japan for two weeks. At 5 foot 11 inches he was surprised to find his capsule spacious enough for him to sit up and roll to the side. He had found 9h on the Internet while staying at a Kyoto ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). He had to ask the ryokan owner to help him book a capsule as 9h’s website is only in Japanese. When asked about the silicon-free shampoo, he said it “lathered well and the towels are white and fluffy.”

Even though word has yet to get out, and occupancy levels at 9h are still below expectations, Yui is not worried about the fluctuations in the local and global economy. “People will always travel,” he said. According to his press release, Japan’s hotel revenue market has grown to one trillion yen, with 600 billion yen spent by budget travellers. If these figures are correct, Yui has every right to be confident about the future success of his new venture. And he is fully committed to providing good service. 

 

For more information on 9h, click here.

For more on Design Studio S, click here.