Capsule Hotels

The capsule idea has spread well past its origins, and the label now covers everything from a sleeping berth in a shared hall to a small private room engineered down to the centimetre. What the properties below share is a decision to spend the budget on location, bedding and bathrooms instead of floor area.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Qbic Hotel Amsterdam WTC

Qbic is built into the World Trade Center complex near Amsterdam Zuid, which puts it inside a business district rather than the old centre and a few minutes from a station with direct airport trains. The hotel's organising idea is the Cubi — a prefabricated unit containing bed, seating, storage and lighting, dropped into an otherwise plain room so that everything a guest touches is within reach of the mattress.

Bathrooms are separate and full-height, which is the main thing distinguishing this from a true sleeping pod. Lighting is adjustable by colour, and the public area downstairs is a single flexible room that serves breakfast early and works as a bar and lounge later.

• Inside the WTC complex
• Prefabricated 'Cubi' room units
• Full private bathrooms
• Close to Amsterdam Zuid station

Osaka, Japan

9 Hours Shinsaibashi

The 9h chain takes the capsule format and strips it back to a stated proposition: one hour to wash, seven to sleep, one to get ready. Shinsaibashi puts that in the middle of Osaka's main shopping and nightlife district, a short walk from Dotonbori.

Everything is engineered around the sequence. Luggage goes into a locker on arrival, the shower floor is separate from the sleeping floor, and the pods themselves are moulded shells with controlled lighting designed to wake guests gradually. Signage is pictographic, the palette is white throughout, and floors are separated by gender. It is not a hotel for lingering in, and it does not pretend otherwise.

• Floors separated by gender
• Moulded sleep pods with wake lighting
• Locker and shower floors separate
• Walking distance to Dotonbori

Seattle, United States

citizenM Seattle

citizenM's rooms are identical by policy: one size, a wall-to-wall bed, a cylindrical glass shower, and a tablet that controls blinds, lighting colour and television. Checking in is done at a screen. None of this is hidden — the trade is small rooms in exchange for a good address and a large ground floor.

The Seattle house is in South Lake Union, within walking distance of the tech campuses that fill the neighbourhood, and that shapes who is in the lobby. The living room downstairs is the real public space: bookshelves, mismatched chairs, a bar open long hours, and several small glass meeting rooms along one wall.

• One standard room size
• South Lake Union address
• Self check-in at kiosks
• Large ground-floor living room