If you’re stuck at an office desk day in and day out, and you feel like having an adrenaline-fueled lunch break to startle you from your near-catatonic state, how about spending it in a pod hanging off the side of your company’s building?
The remarkable — and somewhat scary — Monade Capsule is the creation of French-born designer Alice Bleton, and a prototype was shown off recently at Dutch Design Week.
The Monade Capsule takes its name from “monad,” a word that means “an ultimately simple entity.” The design comprises a steel frame, 21 pieces of fiberglass, and a window to create a pod that rests on the top edge of a building, with one section hanging over the side.
Bleton says her creation is designed for office workers — presumably ones with nerves of steel — to provide them with “a place to isolate themselves, take distance from the office, and re-engage with the environment.”
On her website, the designer elaborates: “As city dwellers, our daily environment consists mainly of concrete and glass buildings. If we can not escape from this landscape, we need to look at things in our environment that give us air and inspiration. The Monade Capsule derives from this thought.”
It’s unclear how the pod would be secured to the building; we’re assuming several securely fastened cables are part of the package although none are shown in the accompanying photos.
The first image in the slideshow above shows someone relaxing inside the Monade Capsule, and take note: The photo isn’t taken from above, looking down. Instead, it’s taken from the side, and the fearless occupant is lying with their back toward the ground. You can also see a small ladder inside, allowing people to easily climb in and out of the pod.
“An urban hut”
Bleton says the project was inspired “by minimal living spaces designed for extreme conditions, such as mountain huts, spaceships, submarines, and bunkers … The Monade Capsule is an urban hut [that] nestles in the density of the city, but escapes it due to its high position. The shape embraces the buildings since it lies partly on the roof and the facade.”
The French designer compares the capsule to a mountain retreat, offering “a quiet space to breathe with a new viewpoint. Spread over the city, the capsules can create a network of unique views — a new way to perceive and embrace our environment.” You just need the guts to climb into it.
