>>7656144I googled "tokyo capsule apartments"; it's the Nakagin Capsule Tower. It got a brief cameo in The Wolverine, as the love hotel Logan and that beautiful Japanese woman escape to.
The concept is that each box is an individual capsule, with standard connectors for water, power, and sewage (and probably air conditioning/heating). Those capsules could be mass-produced, and then could be attached to a standardized framework. If a capsule is damaged or is worn out, a crane could lower the old unit onto a truck, and a new unit plugged into the empty space. So instead of having to build apartment buildings more or less piecemeal as is done now, frameworks could be built relatively quickly, and capsules attached as needed. Clever idea, but each unit looks like it'd only support one person, or a couple with very few possessions and a taste for intimacy.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower