Haebangchon means Freedom or Liberation town, located near Itawon and Yongsan, where many foreign nationals and US army personnel reside. It has recently been retrofitted with many hip Korean and western bars and restaurants, where young international crowd mingles.
The site is at the hilltop where great views of the city is available. (only when you reach the rooftop).
The site is full of chestnut trees and consists of natural contours. By stepping in to the site, you can feel like walking in a deep forest, and then will see the beautiful scenery of valleys of Seori-Mountain. Seori-Mountain is showing different looks by each hour and each season.
The Galleria is Korea’s first and largest upscale department store franchise founded in the 1970s, and has remained at the forefront of the premium retail market in the country since then. The store in Gwanggyo a new town just south of Seoul is the sixth branch of Galleria. Located at the center of this young urban development surrounded by tall residential towers, the Galleria’s stone like appearance makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo.
‘Salon Guui’ seeks a new possibility of refurbishment for an 80’s popular residential building type in Korea. The old building is 3 stories; semi-basement, uplifted 1st floor and the 2nd floor which has independent accesses representing spatial features of the 80’s building. It used to hold 5 residential units: 2 units for semi-basement, 1 for the 1st and 2 for the 2nd floor. The refurnished holds an office in semi basement and the 1st floor, and a single family residential for the owner of the office in the 2nd floor. The main working space of the office is placed in the semi basement. The 1st floor connected through cut-out slab from the semi-basement provides with multi-purposes, as a place of conference, exhibition for a guest, a space of rest and a theater for both office staffs and residents. Placed in between office at the semi-basement and residential at the second level, this uplifted 1st floor works as a ‘salon’ in the whole building.
A first, the client wanted a new kinder-garden on an irregular site with 5 converging roads. It is a prominent site in the neighborhood with long curved edges touching the roads. The maximum floor space was a prerequisite requirement from the beginning like most projects in Seoul, but the space program of 5 large classrooms for different age groups allowed for linear shaped, skipped rectangles with a central stairway that merged with children exhibition space. At the top, there was a small house for the client’s family. The basement was designed as a communal kitchen and dinning room.
Visual media are infiltrating into daily life deeply. An increasing number of people are expressing themselves through various UCC platforms such as YouTube or Africa TV as well as SNS. However, video studio is as unfamiliar as ever to the public. Opened near Gangnam Station late last April, Jam2go is complex cultural space of new concept, where anyone can produce video while seeing, listening, eating and enjoying.
The Masonry, a multi-family house in Korea, seeks a playful game of “scale” in two aspects, the building itself and bricks in its façade. The site sits at the corner, facing its long-north and short-east sides to the roads. Due to the town planning, the entrance and the long side of house need to be facing South. It makes a contradictory condition of pitched roof direction and the main face of the house. Referring Robert Venturi’s House the gable is placed along with a long side of the site towards South. Intentionally treating the gable in opposite position against typical pitched roof shape for structural and economic efficiency the Masonry tricks its scale until visitors enter the house. We were asked to design a house for two families but the house would avoid the appearance of two town houses. Diagonally stacked two kinds of bricks (100mm x 200mm) and cement blocks (200mm x 400mm) creates a singular masonry façade but also nuanced two units of program in a single mass.
There are various works regarding ‘site and space’ but architecture are highly related to site. The same is true for our Cambodia project, Khmeresque, as well as the process of project in Nepal, Himalesque. The common fact that climate conditions determine the architecture of that site is also true this time. The site beyond the Taebaek Mountains’ the spine of the Korean peninsula, is as different as East and West The northeasterly wind coming from the Ulsanbawi Rock and the sea breeze from the East Sea digs up the entire forest full of pines.
JARAMTEO KINDERGARTEN, a district kindergarten of Gwangjin-Gu is sited at a typical residential area where multi-household houses cluster in Junggok-dong. Due to narrowness of the site, facing little to the road and closely surrounded by buildings, JARAMTEO KINDERGARTEN was designed to stand out symbolically as a kindergarten, while blending in with the neighborhood. Restrictions such as, confined site area, accommodation requirement and barrier-free certification derived plans and sections. So the focus of design was on shapes of openings that determine the image of an elevation.
The Second Life_ The client, who is a professor and an engineer, is facing retirement in three years time. He wants to prepare for this second life, where he will enjoy the surrounding environment in a nature-friendly home.
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