Sommaire pour February 2020 de Space

Culture Station Seoul 284, which is located near the bustling Seoul Station, has been transformed into a hotel. The exhibition ‘Hotel Express 284’ introduces the hotel’s unique cultural legacy through an archive from their collections since the 1880s, when modern culture had taken root in Korea as its ports had opened to the world, to the present day where various programmes have now been added. While preserving the composition of the ‘Winter Coffee Club’ that opened in 2018, the exhibition was designed as a reenactment of the space and the service provided by hotels in Seoul of the past. Upon entering the central hall of the Culture Station Seoul 284, one encounters a red carpet that evokes the image of a modern hotel lobby. This space, which adopted the motif…

On Dec. 13, 2019, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (hereinafter MIS) announced that it has picked DIA Architecture (principal, Chung Hyuna)’s design as the winner of the Competition for Democracy and Human Rights Memorial Hall. The memorial hall will replace the National Police Agency’s Security Branch located at Namyeongdong in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, which was originally used as an anti-communist branch of the National Security Headquarters. This building, which was designed by Kim Swoo Geun, operated under a false name, the ‘International Maritime Research Center’, since its construction in 1976, but it became widley known as the ‘Namyeong-Dong Anti-Communist Branch of the Korean National Security Headquarters’ after news of Park Jongchul’s torture and death in 1987 was leaked. This design competition was proposed to introduce a memorial hall that…

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of his firm, Seung H-Sang (principal, IROJE architects & planners) will host the exhibition ‘Seung H-Sang. ZIP: Sentimental Topology’ at Paradise ZIP, a location renovated by the principal himself. On display are a total of 35 projects by the firm, from their earliest works including Sujoldang (1992) and Subaekdang (1999), to more recent creations such as the Muhakro Methodist Church in Hayang (2018) and Bugye Arboretum Sayuwon Myeongjeong (2019), in the form of 21 architectural models and 72 photographs. Seung H-Sang declared his architectural philosophy in Beauty of Poverty (1996). The book elaborates on his emphasis on the hollow or referenced terms such as the ‘Urban Void’, ‘Culturescape’ and landscape to detail his aesthetic ideology. For this show, Seung has chosen ‘Sentimental…

The approach towards creating architecture and expanding cities shares a similar orbit with wider transformations in social values. With developments in civic society, the creation of public spaces, once ordered by the military dictatorship, are now being led by a public authority that encourages the participation of citizens. In the midst of this transition lies Nodeul Island — a pioneering experiment that proposes an ‘open process’ through the introduction of a public competition for its operation and management strategy, and the execution of a spatial and facility guided by the selected plan. Now, as we look over the results of this struggle, what meaning can be gleaned?…

Dec. 26, 2019 7:30 Gimpo International Airport I seated myself in my airplane seat and opened my notebook out of habit, in the hope of finding inspiration for an apt opening line concerning the the design drawings and photographs of the Triple Square House. While scribbling down a few meaningless lines, I recalled a text that I often whispered to myself, when things weren’t going well: ‘architecture is a reconstruction of both the site and the programme’. Today, architecture forces architects to come up with their own interpretations during this process of reconstruction, and architects develop their guiding concepts in their own way. The only moment they reassess their established concept is when they finally face the physical substance (architecture). Triple Square House is the very first work of Studio李心田心,…

Jeon San presents furniture and space design works using plywood and metal. His works do not feature any expensive materials or fancy formative elements. However, when one take a closer look, one can identify a carefully calculated structure and details. Sometimes, Jeon uses primary colours such as yellow, blue and red in a decisive manner. I met with Jeon San, who identifies as somewhere in ‘between a designer and master craftsman, with work between architecture and furniture, and works to fill a gap in the industry’. Choi Eunhwa (Choi): You founded Jeonsan System and work alone. Jeon San (Jeon): When I named my company, I intended to speak for the works themselves rather than the words. I put my name ‘Jeonsan(‘data processing’ in Korean)’ in front and added ‘System’ behind.…

SEOUL LIGHT, a winter festival of lights that occurred over 15 days and welcomed over a million domestic and international visitors, closed on Jan. 3. Hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and Seoul Design Foundation, the event is the first large-scale show of lights that uses the outer walls of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) as a media façade. It is the largest canvas of its kind in the world (220m), upon which collaborative media art works by Sey Min and Refik Anadol were projected. Sey Min is a director who designs media façade work to explore artificial intelligence and Refik Anadol is a Turkish media designer from the first generation of media artists. Their joint creation, Seoul Haemong was a 16-minute long video that visualised the history of…

The exhibition ‘STORYSCAPE’ was held at Wooran Foundation from Dec. 5, 2019 to Jan. 11, 2020. Coined by the project designer of this exhibition, Joon Won Suh (principal, GongGanIkki-Creative Lab for Local and Human Stories), the word ‘STORYSCAPE’ refers to a landscape with a story. This exhibition used the memories and narratives of people as a new approach towards urban interpretation. Upon entering the exhibition hall, one notices that there are numerous photos and videos on the walls. They are Informal Solution by Michael Wolf (1954 – 2019), who tried to capture the backstreets of Hong Kong. He highlighted the city with specific scenes of daily life, such as the various forms of pipes, rubber gloves of similar colour found in different places, and uniquely shaped chairs placed in the…

Recently, the prizewinners of design competitions for large-scale concert and exhibition venues and low-usage urban spaces were announced consecutively. Jecheon-si selected Haenglim Architecture & Engineering as its Jecheon Arts Center with Open & Summer Square (hereinafter Jecheon Arts Center) design competition, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism picked the D&B architecture design group as their winner of the Paju Art Center for Performing Arts (hereinafter Paju Art Center) design competition. Moreover, Seoul Metropolitan Government chose Lab D+H as its winner of the Pedestrian Network along Hangang River (hereinafter Hangang River Network) design competition and Jo Jinman Architects for its Daebangdong Underground Bunker Youth Creative Innovation Experience (hereinafter Daebang-dong Underground Bunker) design competition. Jecheon Arts Center design competition was organised to activate the original city centre and to expand…

Franco Mazzucchelli’s first private show in Asia was on show at the Hakgojae Gallery until Jan. 12. Mazzucchelli is an Italian postmodernist artist, whose sculptures made with industrial PVC materials have earned him great critical acclaim. When the postmodern movement was at its peak in the 1960s, Mazzucchelli hosted an interactive exhibition, ‘A. to A.’, which featured public displays of large inflated PVC pieces. Visitors were able to get a sense of how Mazzucchelli intended his project to interact with audience members, by reviewing a collage of the same series illustrating scenes from this initial show, along with a video recording and detailing the same event. On the walls of the exhibition space was Bieca Decorazione (2010). Each item reveals a different colour, the artwork uses PVC pieces in the…

Japanese Colonial Period – 1960s An artificial hill named Jungjido (Nodeul Island) was built on a sandy bank along the Han River. After liberation, the island functions as a recreational space for city locals as a leisure resort and fishing spot during the summer and a skating rink during the winter until the mid-1960s. 1912 Bridge Construction Plan by Japanese Government-General of Korea 1917. 10. Opening of Han River Pedestrian Bridge In the construction of a metal pedestrian bridge ‒ connects Ichondong and Noryangjin ‒ an artificial island called Jungjido was built, by piling up a stone embankment on the sandy hills. 1925 Eulchuk Major Flood Four consecutive major floods sweep away part of a Han River Pedestrian Bridge and levee. Restoration completed in 1934. 1935 Establishment of the Streetcar…

mmkplus + Topos design Group + Dongsimwon Landscape Architects Architect mmkplus Inc. (Maing Pilsoo, Kim Jihoon, Moon Donghwan) + Topos design Group Inc. (Park Namkyu) + Dongsimwon Landscape Architects Inc (Park Gyoungtak ) Design team mmkplus – Lim Harin, Han Songe, Lee Jihye, Jang Soojung / Topos design Group – Kim Wonyoung, Lee Jonghee, Eum Seonhee, Ryu Jinho / Dongsimwon Landscape Architects – Lee Namjin, Cho Yoohyun, Kim Gun, Park Sungjoon, Paik Gyuri International Design Competition Maing Pilsoo, Kim Jihoon, Moon Donghwan, Park Taehyung Location 445, Yangnyeong-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea Programme cultural (theater, exhibition), commercial (office, shop), 1st & 2nd neighborhood living facilities (studio, restaurant, public restroom) Site area 119,854m2 (upper land area 60,818m2 , lower river area 59,036m2 ) Building area 9,619.09m2 Gross floor area 9,349m2 Building scope 3F…

Architect Office of Contemporary Architecture (Jae Y. Lim) Project manager Kim Heedong Project architect Chung Inchul Project designer Park Kyeongeun Design team Song Hyeona, Sin Jisu, Lee Seulgi Location 66, Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Korea Programme office Site area 989m2 Building area 586.65m2 Gross floor area 7,089.26m2 Building scope B2, 14F Parking 52 Height 72.5m Building to land ratio 59.32% Floor area ratio 415.42% Structure SRC Exterior finishing THK6 ceramic tile, U-channel glass, LOW-E insulating glass, THK44.28 rib glass, SST louver 30×100×T1.2 Interior finishing THK9 ceramic tile, paint finish above gypsum board, aluminum louver, THK9 porcelain tile, THK9 deco tile Structural engineer Joongang Structural Engineering Construction SUNG HYUN E&C Mechanical engineer FOREST MEC Electrical engineer Seongjin TEC Design period SeMyung E&C Construction period Apr. 2016 – Apr. 2017 Construction budget June…

As the rural population continues to decrease, the likelihood of new housing developments in small countryside villages continues to diminish. One encounters similar scenes in any village one may choose to visit, as even the odd house incidentally built is often completed without a plan and using cheap materials. What remains unchanged in these environments are the natural landscapes and the topography. A such, it has become the norm for architects designing residential projects to approach the issue more carefully, contingent upon the terrain or the ecosystem, incase a house may ultimately feel too different from its surrounding neighbours. The woo-mul designed by B.U.S ARCHITECTURE is a house for a client who has moved to a village not far from a nearby city to which She will commute for work.…

The exhibition ‘designed by another ARCHITECT: The romance of many dimensions’ (hereinafter designed by another ARCHITECT) curated by Diagonal Thoughts (co-principals, Kim Sara and Kang Sojin) was on show from Jan. 7 to 19 in the Onground Gallery. The exhibition also featured the work of the artists Park Swan, Jang Sunggun, Anna Anderegg, and Kim Jooyoung. By reinterpreting a building designed by a certain someone from a different viewpoint, the exhibition delivered the message that a space can be perceived differently according to its viewer. Kim Sara explained, ‘this exhibition is a story about personal experience and the recognition of a pre-existing space, and we tried to narrate an architectural story through a method that would differ from solely the act of building’. Flatten Space, is a photograph captured by…

Kwon Minho’s solo exhibition, entitled ‘The dawn bell rang and the new morning came too’, is currently on show at the Mapo Oil Tank Culture Park’s T4 Complex Culture Space. Kwon is an artist whose work condenses Korean society into architectural images that revolve around the form and floorplans of industrial facilities built in the 1970 – 80s. This exhibit is the first of Kwon’s to be hosted in two years since his last show, ‘steel. cement. plastic’ (2017), which took place at the Seoul NPO Center. This time around, his work features various elements that symbolise Korea’s era of industrialisation, in addition to buildings. Five large drawings included in the exhibition illustrate key images that mark important turning points for the history of Korea’s various industries. Some notable examples…

At the 20th Architect Congress Meeting held on Dec. 10, 2019, representatives of Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) announced their conditional acceptance of an architecture plan entitled ‘Urban Maintenance Redevelopment Project for 15 and 16 Districts in Gongpyeong-dong’ (hereinafter Gongpyeong-dong Project). The condition given by the congress included improvements to the facades of the high-rise buildings to match their lower floors and the expansion of public spaces. The 15 and 16 districts of Gongpyeongdong (area around 401-20 of Samildaero, Jongno-gu) that are included in the plan, of the key sites mentioned in the Seoul Urban Architectural Renovation Plan announced in Mar. 2019, will be the first time that a new urban revitalization maintenance method which combines both reorganisation and maintenance is employed. Using this combined urban revitalisation maintenance method, SMG will…

The exhibition designed by the 15th class of student reporters at SPACE (hereinafter student reporters) entitled ‘Unseen Architecture’ is on show at EAGONHAUS until Feb. 4. The exhibition was designed to allow the audience to experience the urban context through a number of senses, and Euljiro – where a range of human activities can be found over its long history of industrial and cultural engagement – was selected as its background. The 7 works introduce in the exhibition collected the urban elements found in Euljiro from different sensory approaches. First, Nogari goalmok, stores on the road (Ha Sunbeom) expresses the double-nature of alleyways that are used as passageways at noon and storage spaces at night, while Weird Euljiro (Jang Jaeyoung) leads the audience to experience different senses of space by…

Value Reified by Fetishism When trying to understand the meaning and value of an object, it is very useful to look at it in terms of its social context. This is the case when inspecting the project of Nodeul Island. Apart from the recent controversies about the symbolic nature and aesthetics of its architecture, a more prominent set of problems regarding the public development of the reserved common area can be defined through the two issues that arose at the completion of the project. They are 1) the government’s immature understanding of the commons and 2) the undemocratic administration of decision making among stakeholders engaged in the development. Additionally, the competition win of the operating authority was revoked; and as it is impossible to appoint the facility operator under the…

The National Theater of Korea is nestled on the Namsan Mountain; the Seoul Arts Center was set up on the Umyeonsan Mountain; and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) was raised in the suburbs of Cheonggyesan Mountain, having been pushed out of the capital following a convoluted sequence of events that made public facilities hard for the public to access. To explain, at the risk of further misunderstanding, the citizen class had lost its chance to recover those spaces and places dominated by the old powers in the transition from a dynasty to a republic in the colonial period and the subsequent military dictatorship. This loss of momentum is still quite influential even now, despite the fact that a significant amount of time has passed since the…

The architecture of the Georgia Institute of Technology bears the marks of different phases of growth and ways of thinking. Current campus planning addresses manifold requirements, including the creation of more coherent connective landscape systems of pathways and open spaces, the intensification and celebration of links to the urban environment of Midtown Atlanta, and the creation of new buildings that embody new principles of environmental performance and sustainability. In this context, a respect for campus history, a spirit of economy, and an understanding that the adaptive re-use of existing buildings is an integral part of a more sustainable environment, collectively lead to projects of greater sensitivity and resilience. The Interdisciplinary Design Commons is one of these projects, located at the heart of the campus. We designed it to express and…