A piece of furniture called simply “a capsule” is a provision of temporary loneliness in our ultimate world of consumerism. It has its own light and speaker which is to be complemented by a user’s own smartphone to create a unique personal climate for a proclamation of personal identity.  Having its roots in the famous Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo the ‘capsule’ is a reflection of the original capsule put into the furniture scale. Such transition makes the ‘capsule’ truly movable without losing the original concept put in the capsule phenomenon by Nakagin Capsule Tower’s architect – Kisho Kurokawa. In his philosophy formed at the time of rise of the information age, where we are sinking right now, the ‘capsule’ is a strict separation of an individual from information overflow. The psychological issue of modern age may be an exposure to the exceeded information, while distancing of people inside their personal pages of social platforms is a feedback to hide from others behind a smartphone screen. The ‘capsule’ is a physical way to mentally hide from surrounding noise for a while to relax and to get refreshment.

 

         The role of furniture in either person-to-person communication or person versus environment one is obvious. We provide a guest with the finest chair, we beat table in a rage, but I personally think that Will Smith in Men in Black I movie showed it best in the famous scene of him dragging a table. Showing one’s own dignity is fine; hiding alone is fine either since it contributes to a formation as an individual. The ‘capsule’ is a smallest still effective piece of personal space which is well-equipped with electronics while it fully submerges a body for a limited period of time due to the sofa’s round shape perfect for short naps or music listening. The curtain, what can be rolled up, doses the amount of the incoming information, as well as the contribution of a user to ongoing state of things. That is to say, the purpose of the capsule is a settable cover, what is physically possible to grasp, together with equally settable communication involvement.

 

          Having its roots in the original design of Nakagin Capsule Tower, the round sofa shares the same diameter of the window of 1.3 meters, what, as it turned out, is extra comfortable to lay inside. Being the main feature of the original capsule’s interior, a window and its context is the brightest spot having its origin in Satori no Mado (Window of enlightenment) – round window inside Japanese temple of Genko-an in Kyoto to observe surrounding garden. Yet the brightness was not put into the original concept of the window, but it was rather clear that it had been the only source of light inside the capsule interior. In my renovation project of one of the capsules in the capsule tower, I intended to put flowers near the window to celebrate the brightest spot but I decided to put a person there instead. Surprisingly, the created storage with a sofa built in the window’s structure became a capsule inside a capsule itself, so it was not difficult to extract it from the interior in order to make it an autonomous object.

 

           The capsule has a personal light put a little bit aside for better illumination; in such way behaves the speaker to spread sound waves directly or indirectly to the user, together with plenty of moderate reverberation due to a round shape. Sliding table outside is surely multifunctional while consents are moved to the façade to prevent cords inside. Moreover, the consent for charging a smartphone is separate to the left (looking on the façade) and has its own small shelf to put a telephone onto a wireless charger pad or plug it into a USB charger or, again, another casual consent. In other words, the capsule’s design, sharing a modern look of the Japanese retro-futurism, summarize three generations of electrical outlets in one thing. The sofa is adjustable either for almost sitting position or as if laying in a bowl. A person completely surrounded by a televisor-like cubic structure has its own background wallpaper different from surroundings that highlight a person’s temporal independence.

 

           In our rapidly changing world, the extreme introversion may be the pushback in order not to be overwhelmed. So in my thinking, the dosed loneliness is a solution to spend this psychological need to prevent it from piling up with time when it blows up or becomes chronic.  Similarly to existing sleep pods helping company employees to get off a grid, the ‘capsule’ is rather social-oriented tool of transportable environment much cozier comparing with outside, so it may be put inside lobbies, waiting halls, common rooms, lounge spaces, that is, where exposure is inevitable or shelter is required.