Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower
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Nakagin Capsule Tower put text here put caption here Project Overview Kisho Kurokawa
1970-1972
Steel + Reinforced Concrete
Funcional Cores + Capsule Modules
13 floors + 11 floors/140 units
Residential + Office
2 3 Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower
High Red Center Cleaning Event (Be Clean! Campaign to Pro- mote Cleanliness and Order in the Metropolitain Area) 1964
the capacity to respond to the dimension Nakagin Capsule Tower reconfigured the relationship between 21st Century of time, through the modification of itself to industry, technology, and social organization Nakagin Project Context into a relevant and adaptable configuration maintain relevance. The Metabolist manifesto, Metabolism 1960: for a progressive post-industrial society, Proposals for New Urbanism, opens with the inspired by the transient chemical processes Within the increasingly informed context of following text: that enable vitality within organic matter. The the 21st Century, the Nakagin Capsule Tower, Metabolist objective was not the acceptance despite having suffered a multiplicity of “We regard human society as a vital process of metabolism as a natural historical process, sociopolitical neglect that will quite possibly – a continuous development from atom to but the retranslation and utilization of the result in its deconstruction, arguably contin- nebula. The reason why we use such a bio- idea as a flexible urban system that overrides ues to reflect a metabolic process. While the logical word, metabolism, is that we believe the conventional obstacles of geography, relevance of its current state is continually design and technology should be a denota- tradition, and epoch. debased within Tokyo’s contemporary urban tion of human society.” fabric, its very deconstruction offers new Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower possibilities for programmatic expansion With the arrival of the year 1960, in the (1972), manifesting from this dialogue, pres- starting at the level of the module, once again context of Japan’s fragmented post-war ents an urban system designed to accom- providing an opportunity for retranslation. urban landscapes, arose a formal societal modate the dynamic lifestyle of the urban discussion regarding the nature of these dweller within an increasingly technocratic landscapes in a globalized, post-industrial society. Composed of 140 flexible and self- context. Metabolism, an ideology essential to contained capsules, designed with estima- this dialogue, offered a relatively a-contextual tions for longevity and renewal, bolted to two solution to these ruined landscapes that fixed cores, the system theoretically contains
4 5 Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower
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Nakagin Capsule Tower put text here put caption here Building Systems + Construction The towers were designed as functional cores, housing the major building systems and circulation spaces. The capsules are bolted onto the cores and secured with steel tension cables. Each capsule is an independent unit capable of being replaced without affecting the overall building structure; however, due to the construction methods used, all of the capsules above the one being replaced must be removed in order to replace the unit.
6 7 Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower
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Nakagin Capsule Tower put text here Building System Analysis
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8 9 Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower
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Nakagin Capsule Tower put text here Module Analysis
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