One of the most problematic aspects of Nakagin Capsule Tower is that the floor area is much smaller than of a traditional building, traditional building proposals for the site of roughly the same height generates about 60% more floor area to be rented out or sold.20 Another inherent problem in the capsule-design is the ratio of external walls to floor area, where every 8,7 square meter apartment has about 46,5 square meters external walls loosing heat in the winter and getting hot in the summer. By todays ways of thinking about energy in building physics this is a major problem. Personalization of the living units is also only possible at a risk for health compared to other (traditional) types structures that allow you to drill in walls and often rearrange your apartment to your needs. The ideas that the Nakagin Capsule Tower embodies are still important, ideas of flexibility of structure, function and growth over time. The fact that the structure itself makes it visible that a building has many layers that all have different lifespans is very emphatic even though Kurokawas design has proved that the capsules themselves are probably a to large and cumbersome system to be truly flexible, given the fact that they have never been replaced. If Kurokawa had continued with his “plug-in module” way of designing into the capsules themselves, making it possible to change electronic equipment and furnishings, the building which now is threatened with demolition might have had a better chance of survival.
Nakagin Capsule Tower Interior, 2013, Photo: Noritaka Minami 22
Nakagin Capsule Tower, Sections and Plans (not to scale) 21
20. Lin, p. 241. 21. Nakagin Capsule Tower Plans, http://sciarctokyo.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/nakagin-capsule-plans-and-sections-and-axon.jpg, Accessed 2 October 2014 22. N. Minami, 2013, http://2wanderlust.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/1972_05.jpg?w=450&h=360, Accessed 2 October 2014 23 MWArchitecture, Nakagin Capsule Tower- Generic Capsule Plan, http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GVPuEC_b30k/SwxoaNoTwxI/ AAAAAAAAAV0/2W5VmqHcGew/s400/6-7, Accessed 2 October 2014
Generic Capsule Plan 23