The iconic capsule hotels of Japan have always had a futuristic vibe, looking as they do like a dystopian city's solution to overcrowding. (Chez Willis in The Fifth Element, anyone?) Few of them embrace that characterization quite as fully as Kyoto's Nine Hours hotel, whose all-white pods could easily pass for cryosleep chambers. Whether the place's minimalist interior—which is entirely colorless aside from signage delineating floors by gender—strikes you as hospital-room sterile or Apple-product inviting is a pretty good gauge of how enamored you are with the idea of living in a sci-fi novel.
The hotel's title refers to a schedule the hotel suggests for clients—one hour to prepare for bed, seven hours for sleep, and one hour to get up—although the regimen is only a recommendation; the interiors are the creation of designers Takaaki Nakamura and Fumie Shibata, while its simple iconography comes courtesy of Masaaki Hiromura. Nine Hours, which opened in 2009, is said to have closed at the end of October, but claustrophilic tourists on a budget take heart: the hotel's new website says that it's open for business again, and despite its moniker, guarantees stays of up to 24 hours.
· Nine hours in a capsule: sleeping in a sci-fi hotel that wants you to leave [The Verge]
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