Text description provided by the architects. The site is located next to Dosan Park in Gangnam, one of Seoul’s most heavily trafficked neighborhoods. As Seoul expanded in the 1960s, the area around the site was laid out in a grid-like urban plan with wide streets and has recently become denser. The site faces a narrow road compared to the surrounding roads, but many people use it.
We wanted to minimize the pressure of the building on the narrow road. The first-floor façade of the building maximizes the glass area to create a sense of openness, and the mass of the building is planned to be horizontally divided.
The massing is floated with glass and reflectors to create a sense of massing, which allows natural light to flow deep into the interior. The segmented masses are proportioned differently on each floor, creating an ambiguous sense of scale. Each mass is subtly different in color and texture, adding to the richness of the building’s overall elevation.
