Atmospheric Islands - A phone booth retrofitted into an atmospheric capsule: light, temperature, air, mist, sound, and vibration combine to create a believable sense of another place, all inside the existing structure.
Atmospheric Islands - Thousands of existing phone booths across Tokyo, reimagined as one connected network, so two people in two different booths can share a single atmosphere.
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どの絶滅危惧空間を扱うのか(300文字以内)
Public phone booths (公衆電話ボックス), down roughly 86% since mobile phones took over, yet still standing on street corners across nearly every district: powered, sheltered, and free, at a moment when small pockets of unclaimed public space are increasingly rare in a dense city.
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なぜその絶滅危惧空間を扱うのか(600文字以内)
Phone booths were built to connect people across distance, but mobile phones made that function nearly obsolete overnight. What survives is not useless: a weatherproof, powered, one-square-metre shelter, ready to host a small added AC unit, standing in walkable spots city-wide, from station approaches to shopping streets to neighbourhood corners. Tokyo has abundant destinations but little free space that asks nothing of you. Reusing this vanishing network turns an overlooked leftover into thousands of small, free places to pause, instead of demolishing something that once connected people.
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どのようにその絶滅危惧空間を変異させるのか(1200文字以内)
Retrofit each booth into an 'atmospheric capsule' using six simple, off-the-shelf elements: a soft diffuse light field, a compact added AC/heat-pump unit for temperature and airflow, fine mist, spatial sound, and floor vibration. The approach draws on ongoing doctoral research showing a small, well-chosen set of sensory cues can reliably evoke a convincing atmosphere, without costly full simulation. Three modes: Solo Retreat, a preset atmosphere for a short pause; Distant Realities, a compressed window onto another place; and Shared Call, two booths sharing one atmosphere, reviving the booth's original purpose of connecting people. This is a network idea, not a single-site renovation: one shared library of atmospheres, with a small kit inside each booth. The social aim: turn a vanishing, ownerless piece of city infrastructure into small pockets of calm and connection in a dense, high-stimulation city, when public space and unstructured rest are both scarce. Rollout: pilot two to three decommissioned booths in one ward with a municipal and telecom partner, connect a cluster to test Shared Call, then open the library to designers and residents as it scales.
