Antithesis

Hanyang

Project idea

CONTEXT
Site: Seoul Station, Seoullo 7017
Address: 18Toegye-ro, Bongnaedong 2(i)-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Seoul City is a rapidly developing city that has a complex infrastructure, active and diverse character. Especially, the Seoul Station area, which represents this complexity & diversity, is the center of various kinds of transportation and the region of Urbanism. Also, in this district programs of the buildings and types of architecture are diverse, that shows different views of the city, which is active both during the day and at night.
The main attraction of the region is a recently completed highway renovation project designed by MVRDV and named Seoullo 7017. The Seoullo 7017 project presents the idea ' from the road to walkway' by a transformation of the old highway road into a walkway for people. It is a project of city regeneration that was created with a concept of sky park.

CITY ELEVATION

The main idea is the creation of continuous urban area through an extension of a City Elevation of the region where The Seoullo7017 split the district into 2 areas from the east to the west.
Based on the context of the site, the project was designed from the viewpoint of the city while considering a unity of the city elevation. The site has a long shape and intersects Seoullo from the south to the north, from back of Culture Station Seoul 284 to Post office. It also continues the greening process by the creation of a sequential GREEN ELEVATION. The building connects with famous places of the Seoul Station district, such as Lotte Mall and Culture Station Seoul 284, and extends the city architectural sequence. The long mass of the building is perpendicular to Seoullo, which is dominated by the region, and at the meeting point, Seoullo is disappearing inside the ‘ELEVATION’. Therefore the role of the 'ELEVATION' is enhanced and the role of Seoullo is diminished.

ANTITHESIS

This project proposes a new concept of 'sky park' through a design a winter garden-gallery, which is linking directly to Culture Station Seoul 284 and extends the cultural space program.
In order to create a peaceful and natural space in contrast to noisy transport, complex infrastructure, and urban development of the region, I have designed an architecture that expresses a contrasting relationship starting from the spatial program and finishing in the choice of materials. The above indoor garden is the space which is contrasting to Culture Station and floats above the area, which is the center of a transport network. On the other hand, the space in the lower part of the building, which connects with the cultural station, is in contrast to the upper atmosphere and tightly connected to the ground. Thus, in order to express this “antithesis”, the relationship between the upper space and the lower space was designed with the concept of floating-anchoring.

Project description

SPATIAL STRUCTURE

In the gallery space the surfaces used for exhibition play the main role. Therefore in order to emphasize the display surface, space was designed by walls. The lower walls are located in two opposite directions and create a centralized space where one wants to stay for a while. On the other hand, in the design of the upper space gallery, huge walls were located in one direction and create a walking gallery.

CIRCULATION

The ground floor is following the slope of the ground surface and merge with the square in front of the gallery main entrance, creating a friendly open space for citizens. By imitating the characteristics of the square, the interior is filled with various spaces, with circulation which goes in two directions. On the other hand, inside the glass house, that directly connected to Seoullo, circulation is imitating the nature of walkway, it follows a wall-gallery and flows out into one direction. Therefore, the circulation emphasizes the floating-anchoring idea of ‘antithesis’ relationship.

APPROACH (city flow)

The lower part of the building has access at various levels on the slope, which creates a friendly open space for pedestrians. In the upper part of the building, a walking path gets down from Seoullo 7017 to both sides. The south pathway connects the glass house directly to Culture Station Seoul 248 and Lotte mall, also it was designed to allow a visitor to go down to the Seoul Station platform or to go to the roof of Culture Station. The north pathway goes down to the lower floor and leads to the slope of the ground. Therefore, there is a continuous flow of circulation in the glass house and it is connected to the city's flow.

Technical information

For the upper part of the building were used steel frames and transparent glass. In order to emphasize a durable and flexible character of a steel structure, a large space was constructed with light-weight, thin steel frames, and ceiling structure was constructed with a thin truss structure that looks like a spider web. The exterior of the winter garden was designed as one large glass envelope to emphasize the reflection and transparency of the glass. The gallery’s walls, which are rising out of the ground covered with grass, are made by gray exposed concrete and surrounded by trees and plants that grew freely to create a natural atmosphere inside the indoor garden.

The lower part of the building visually extended the Culture Station Seoul 284 and used the red in-situ concrete to represent the context of the red brick, the material of the Culture Station. Thus, façade is continued by exposed rough-textured pink concrete. Inside the gallery, was used a natural color exposed concrete in order to emphasize a display function of the surface of the wall. The lower gallery looks like it was carved from a rock, it strongly connects with the ground and creates deep massive space by thick concrete walls.

Co-authors

none