Category 02 · 3 hotels
Pods, cabins and compact rooms planned around sleep and very little else.
2.1Tokyo, Japan
Nine Hours takes its name from a simple sum. One hour to shower, seven to sleep, one to get ready. Everything in the building serves that plan.
Capsules are white, stacked in quiet rows, with adjustable lighting and clean bedding. Lockers and shared washrooms sit apart from the sleeping areas. Signs are minimal and the lighting soft. The Shinjuku-North branch puts you within walking distance of Shinjuku's rail lines and late-night streets.
2.2Seattle, United States
On Pike Street in downtown Seattle, YOTEL applies its cabin format to a city hotel. Rooms are compact on purpose. Fittings fold, slide and tuck away.
Beds adjust to work as sofas during the day. Check-in runs through self-service kiosks. Shared spaces downstairs give guests somewhere to spread out that the cabins can't offer. Pike Place Market and the convention centre are both close enough to reach on foot.
2.3London, England
Clink78 occupies a nineteenth-century magistrates' court near King's Cross. The building's past is not hidden. Some guests sleep in rooms converted from the old holding cells.
Dormitories use pod-style beds with curtains, a light and a power socket for each sleeper. Courtroom panelling survives in parts of the building. A shared kitchen and a basement bar keep costs down and give guests a place to meet. King's Cross and St Pancras stations are a few minutes' walk away.