Table of contents for September 2021 in Space

Located in Jingwan-dong, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, the detached house ‘Janus’ has Eunpyeong Hanok Village at its front and Mt. Bukhansan at its back. Designed by Mokgeumto Architecture & Interior Design (principal, Kown Jaehee), this building was built on a site area of 330m2 with a total floor area of 339.18m2 . When designing Janus, the architect tried to harmonize the design with the surrounding context of this hanok village, but to reinterpret the structure in a modern way without using the hanok as a direct source. As a result, the building exudes the impression of the numaru of a hanok, with a black and neat second-floor mass placed on the first-floor mass lifted lightly by piloti. In particular, the mass on the second floor reminds us of the black tile roof…

Jeong Zik Seong’s solo exhibition ‘Construction Site Abstract’ was held between July 14 and Aug. 8 at PAGEROOM8 in Seoul. The artist, who was born in 1976, introduced herself using words such as ‘40s, non-regular worker, woman, mother’. Her work, which evolves along with major life events such as marriage, childbirth, and parenting, reminds us that art cannot be separated from life. In college, she joined a photography club which led her to join another artists’ group, FlyingCity, which contended with housing and social issues faced by lower income classes. The Semidetached Houses series (2002 – ), which reworked the rapidly-growing urban structures of multi-family, multi-house housing blocks, grew from this point of interest and lived experience. The following project, Constructive Abstract / Construction Site Abstract (2012 – ) is…

Since 2019, Namhae Dolchanggo has overseen the ‘Namhae’s Protected Tree Project’, which promotes the history and values of Namhae Protected Trees and expands its reach across a range of cultural content. In the first year, Namhae Protected Trees (2019), a book was published containing documentation and drawings of 31 Namhae protected trees. In the following year, the exhibition, ‘Protector of the village: Namhae’s Protected Tree Project 2020’ was held. This year, as the project enters its third year, ‘Protected Trees, Wa: Namhae’s Protected Tree Project 2021’ is on show until Dec. 31 at Namhae Dolchanggo. This exhibition seeks to restore spatiality to protected tree (dangsan tree) as the central space of the village where rest, play, and rituals are combined. To this end, collaborations took place between youth groups (KITOYU,…

In recent months, there has been a discussion concerning the restructuring of the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), in connection with the scandal arising around the real estate speculation by LH employees. On July 28, at the public hearing on the LH restructuring plan held by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), a total of three alternatives were discussed. Among Plan A (parallel separation between Housing/Housing Welfare and Land), Plan B (parallel separation between Housing Welfare and Housing/Land), and Plan C (the perpendicular separation between Housing Welfare and Housing/Land), Plan C was considered as the most persuasive. Subsequently, on Aug. 5, there was a discussion session ‘Seeking the LH Reformation Plans for the People’ held by the association of architecture and urban organisations. Experts on housing, architecture,…

Chungnam Art Museum International Invited Design Competition On July 22, the Province of Chungcheongnam-do announced that it had selected the plans of DA Group Urban Design & Architecture Co., Ltd. (principal, Kim Hyunho) and UNStudio (partner, Astrid Piber) as the award winning design of the international Invited Design Competition for the Chungnam Art Museum. This design competition was held to establish a contemporary art museum, which becomes an art platform and space for communication that combines art and local communities. The winning work presented the Chungnam Art Museum as a ‘cultural hub’ in which to experience art and technology and create a future culture in collaboration with the local community. The work connects galleries, convenience facilities, and various programmes organically, by situating a courtyard in the centre of the building…

THING Everyone has something that they care about. This article is about the things that protect and brighten the everyday lives of architects. ‘What are you up to this weekend? Camping again?’ The same question every friday afternoon. Whenever my colleagues at my previous workplace asked me why I would spend my hard-earned weekend camping, I simply answered: ‘to bulmung (space out while staring at fire)’. It was about a decade after moving to Seoul that I took up camping as a hobby. Seoul life was new and captivating at first, but I could not shake off a certain feeling of oppressiveness. To quell this feeling, I began taking daytrips to nearby mountain regions and seaside towns every weekend by train. One day, Shin Juyoung, with whom I currently run…

Bugok Friday House in Yangju, Gyeonggi-do, is a vacation home built within a typical suburban housing development. At the end of an alley within this network of buildings, you reach a small house encircled by bamboo walls. This gable-roofed, single-storey home is conspicuous among the surrounding houses, all of which appear to be somewhat intimidated. How has architect Cho Sungik realised his desire to build an archetypal small house for relaxation, one that would exist between an apartment and a summer house? Here we share our conversation as we strolled around this house. Bang Yukyung (Bang): You have designed a vacation home on the outskirts of Seoul. When you first met the clients, what did you discuss? What were their requirements? Cho Sungik (Cho): The clients are a married couple…

How is travel possible in the pandemic era, when mobility and transit are subject to certain restrictions? The exhibition ‘Traveling Without Moving’, held at MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea) Residency Changdong until Aug. 22, begins with this question. The title of the exhibition derives from a 2013 solo exhibition by one of the participating artists, Chung Soyoung. The intention is to ‘travel while standing still’ by geologically approaching the vertical change to urban space where numerous layers are constantly built and disappeared. The title, which was recalled eight years later, became a starting point from which to redefine the meaning of travel in a completely different pandemic context and to find alternatives. Chung’s Mirrors for Mirok Li is based on the book The Yalu Flow (1946)…

A Young Architect’s First Project In 2013, I founded my architect office in Euljiro with my university senior and colleague who were to become the co-founder sitting across a second-hand dining table of about 500 × 1,000mm in size. Back then, we gratefully took even unpaid jobs just for the sake of working as an architect. It was a time when more time had to be spent on the explanation process in response to the unreasonable social demands than on the actual design itself. This was how my first engagement with society as an architect was established. Any first experience is significant. One shows a high degree of responsiveness to one’s first experience, which is then stored as a formless memory-material that pervades the entire body. This formless and yet…

“We know nothing of vast multiplicity, we cannot come to terms with it as architects or planners or anybody else… But if society has no form how can architects build its counterform?” Aldo Van Eyck Emerging Complexity Buildings are becoming more complex. Driven by a diversifying society, advances in technical and sustainable construction, higher density urban planning, and the rising expectations of owners, architects must increasingly design for multi-faceted programmes. This is increasingly the case in Korea, where across all sectors of architecture including governmental, educational, housing, and commercial, the ‘dominant’ programme is being integrated with cultural and community facilities. This complexity can be a good thing: if a building contains more functions, it can generate more synergies between activities. Nonetheless, complex programming is a grey disciplinary area. Architecture students…

BC Ang studied architecture in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and founded WHBC Architects with Wen Hsia Ang in 2007. They believe that design is an act of balancing utility, technology and emotions in its specific place. Their representative projects include Telegraph Pole House, Durian Shed and Dog House, Tropical Box House, and Asli. Park Changhyun did his M.Arch and at the Graduate School of Architecture, Kyonggi University. He is currently the principal at a round architects. He won the 32nd KIA Award for his SKMS Research Lab, the Seoul Metropolitan City Architecture Award for his Joeun Sarangchae, and the Kim Swoo Geun Preview Award for his Jeju Mujindowon. He is also the winner of the Iconic Award held at Germany in 2019 for his Jeju Seoho-dong Residence. He has taught students…

The exhibition, ‘Beyond the Road’, focusing on reinterpretations of songs from artist’s albums, has been on show at The Hyundai Seoul ALT.1 Gallery since July 23. ‘Beyond the Road’ is a tour-exhibition which was first held at the Saatchi Gallery in London, UK in 2019, designed to expand the experience of music through immersive media art. The exhibition consists of installations, videos and sculptures based on the two most recent albums of electronic musician James Lavelle. The 1,000m2 exhibition hall was divided into 33 rooms and has become a stage upon which to introduce various commissioned works. The film director Danny Boyle re-edited an episode of the drama Trust (2018) to match the original soundtrack composed by James Ravel, while Alfonso Cuaron played some cuts from Roma (2018) which had…

On Aug. 10, the winners of the 39th Seoul Architecture Awards were announced. The grand prize went to Seoul Seojin School (covered in SPACE No. 634) designed by CoRe Architects (co-principals, U Zongxoo, Kim Vin). Seoul Seojin School is a specialist school located in Gayang-dong, Gangseogu, designed as a courtyard-type building to accommodate indoor activities of students with developmental disabilities. The judges commented that the programme required for special schools was well reflected in the design process that accompanies the remodeling and extension. The top prize went to JTBC Building by THE_SYSTEM LAB (principal, Kim Chanjoong) and Zipzip Madang by Bold Architects (co-principals, Shin Sungjin, Son Kyungmin). The JTBC building is defined by a spatial configuration in which the equipment can be attached and detached as per the broadcast production…

Theory of the Earth, the book by James Hutton published in 1795, contains an engraving of unconformity in Jedburgh, Scotland. The upper half of the print appears to be an ordinary landscape painting of a rural landscape; against rolling low hills in the distance, a person on a carriage is passing by a horse rider; a fenced-off bushy road is sparsely lined with trees. However, below this plane the picture reveals a cross-section of the earth. Flat sedimentary layers lie just below the surface, followed by unconformity at a deeper level, as well as a vertical layer at the bottom that has clearly experienced uplift, tilting and erosion since its formation much earlier under the sea. The sequences make visible the notion that the land has experienced at least two…

Bang Yukyung (Bang): ‘Haesley Hamlet’ is an extension and new construction for the ‘Haesley Nine Bridge’, a members-only golf club located in Yeoju, Gyeonggido, Korea. After completing the Clubhouse in 2009, you designed the extension to four buildings. What were the main requirements from the clients who commissioned this series of designs? Ban Shigeru (Ban): First of all, I must stress that this project was the most ideal situation and collaboration with a client to be commissioned for an extension of an existing building like the Clubhouse. The relationship with the client team developed in such positive terms, and they were pleased with the result of our design. The new buildings amount to four, including the Laurel Hall, Bridge Center, Timber House, and Panorama Center. The main requirement from the…

Ken Sungjin Min (principal, SKM Architects) seeks to establish reasons for the existence of a building by posing fundamental and naive questions. He seeks to add vitality to a building by presenting new possibilities for the space through a meticulously organised and integrated design. For instance, when he programmes a large area, he also manages to design everything down to a single light fixture in order to improve the level of architectural perfection, constantly communicating with the client about the inherent value of the building. In this Frame, we will hear Ken Sungjin Min on the attitudes and philosophy that underpin SKM. In addition, we will consider a text written by John Hong (professor, Seoul National University), who explores in metaphorical language the complex programmes of SKMʼs works and how…

Orrrn, created by space design studio ATMOROUND and landscape design office DEWSONG PLACE, is a café in which visitors can enjoy the beautiful scenery of Jeju. Visitors used to move their seats to the beach in front of the building, take in the canola flowers in the backyard, and bear witness to Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak just beyond the rooftop. In this interview, SPACE discusses the proposed way of looking at Jeju Island’s natural world from within this café. Kim Yeram: I heard that the concept behind this café, ‘just being here’, derives from your first impression of the site? Lim Myeongki: When I came to the site of this building to make my draft, I was so impressed by the canola flowers and the wind lifting from the sea.…

The exhibition ‘Our Happy Life’, held in 2019 at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), points to ‘happiness’ as a new focus and concern for today’s architecture. Happiness, which used to be considered a very personal feeling and experience, now functions as part of the logic of the market economy, an ideology, and as a standard measurement within urban and national rankings. Two years later, in 2021, the exhibition opened at the Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture (Seoul HOUR) as an international exchange exhibition. How does architecture affect happiness and how does happiness affect architecture? SPACE spoke with the three curators of the exhibition: Francesco Garutti and Irene Chin of CCA and Kim Hyoeun of Seoul HOUR. Choi Eunhwa (Choi): The exhibition ‘Our Happy Life’ was first held in…