Alice Bleton’s Capsule Prototype Reconnects Office Workers With the Outdoors
Talk about hanging out. But not if you’re prone to vertigo. Monade Capsule, a prototype that debuted during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, is Alice Bleton’s response to “office workers needing a private spot away from the office where they can re-engage with the outdoors,” she notes.
Citing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, along with bunkers and submarines as inspiration, Bleton’s 20-square-foot structure holds up to four people, securing to a building’s roof and one of its elevations by balancing the weight via a quarter-section void in the form. Concept development began with researching the stacked tetrahedron construction of Ken Isaac micro houses and cell-like sculptures by Meir Eshel, aka Absalon. Then, using layers of laminated fiberglass, a material typically used to contain swimming pools, she produced 21 structural panels.
Bolted together, the front and center panels are clear, so as not to obstruct the surrounding views. But the side panels are translucent, for privacy. Inside is a ladder for climbing down from and up to the roof. “As city dwellers, our daily perspective consists of concrete and glass buildings,” she says. “This gives us air and inspiration.”
