Traces of Okin 옥인아파트

On our penultimate day in Seoul, I returned to the site that I visited some time ago and could not forget, the Okin APT site, at the foot of Mt. Inwangsan. During my visit, building four was in the process of being demolished. The signs of life that I had seen before, washing on the line, had disappeared.

Seoul Gift Crit

Our final walls

Our Final crit in Seoul took place in our studio at KNUA, we were joined by Robert, Peter Feretto, Haewon, Ryul and Christian, Stef, mulled wine and mince pies.....


Key comments for my project include:

PF Could the ‘market’ move, it is static and permanent, perhaps a circus of events that colonise and adapt to given context is better (and more Korean)

R-You are doing what Beni avoided, inserting a default program in naming as such, which closes possibilities and it becomes familiar, blocks imagination.
Should be a subtle reprioritising of elements that allow things to happen in central space
v.nice model and photos of APT, suggesting ‘promiscuous’ relationship between interior and exterior.  could it be a choreographed space with ambiguous activity?
Plan is zoned, does exactly what you don’t want it to do.
3rd scale is apartment, 3 scales, completes thesis?

S- Could you play with the transparencies and different depths of space of the apartments?

P-could be something that occupies site during period when building is abandoned before it is demolished. A system that is not explicit to one plot, a repertoire, you apply and adapt to each site?

S-Exploit the homogeneity of the structures, a robust concrete frame?

R-Apartments are quiet, the only such spaces in seoul, should these environments be invaded?

P-Good you have developed project through drawings and used to extrapolate thesis.

Section through Ichon APT across the horizontal and vertical layers of infrastructure, road and dwellings

Silhouettes

Looking through the layers - street, home, market

'Dream Hub Yongsan IBD'

Daniel Liebskand has big plans for 'Yongsan International business district'....

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/show-all/dream-hub-yongsan-ibd/

 http://www.dreamhub21.com/eng/whatdreamhub/summary.asp

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/show-all/dream-hub-yongsan-ibd/

Re-using Ichon

Can a dwindling APT threatened with demolition support a lively neighborhood market? If this space is important to people in the wider local area, and not just the residents who live here perhaps it has more reason to continue to exist?

Strips and layers

Looking towards ichon and sanho APT

In a linear site where green space, residence and shops are stratified, is it possible to bring them together at points of focus - like seams that bind together layers of fabric?

Front and Back

Red pojagi Front and Rear

In thinking about my gift  I have been re-examining the Korean Pojagi, and how this everyday craft form can help inform my thinking about my chosen sites. Certain pojagi (chogakpo) are constructed from small squares of recycled silk. In order to make larger pieces they are stitched together, often with a ramie backing piece. As a result, the front and backs of these pieces of cloth have very different, but equally beautiful qualities. At the back, the construction becomes an artful feature and at the front, through the light, these lines are perceptible only as silhouettes. Can the construction, or articulation of an urban block be thought of in a similar way - an entity that is composed of vertical layers that have a relationship to one another but which can be perceived in different, subtle ways from the front or rear?

Old Yongsan

Yongsan 1937 an important appendix of Seoul

Chongsan not yongsan 1908 showing subtle ways of delimiting edges and portions of land

Identifying patches and intensifying edges

a line of apartments of different ages at the lip of the city

Identifying patches of city

How to turn redundant edges into seams?

Yongsan

San ho 산 호 아파투

아ㅊ

Along the Han river from Ichon APT is Sanho, a newer complex built in the 1980s, featuring long unbroken lines of windows, cars and barrier walls.

Ichon APT 이촌 시펌총산 아파투 Elevation

 

The ground floor of this APT is connected to the fabric of the block surrounding it. The combination of steps, shops and overlooking doors and windows reminded me of New York Brownstone buildings and the kind of sense of shared space generated there. I imagine that at its strongest, this site may have

been able to sustain a similar kind of lifestyle.

Learning from Ichon

Sandwiched between the four lane motorway and Yongsan railway lands is Ichon APT. This 45 year old model has both qualities of Old Seoul and New Seoul. Instead of entering apartments at ground floor level like the newer APTs, there is space for shops and a flight of steps leading to the dwellings. Only a few of these are actually shops, some are small residences, and others just storage facilities. But by bringing a sense of inhabitation to the ground level, together with the tightness of the block (8m ) This characteristic, together with the tightness of the gap between buildings creates more of a sense of neighborhood.

Paju

horizons of paju

scale of landscape and scale of facade

wrapping and lining space

transitions in scale from public to domestic

Ichon APT 이촌 시펌총산 아파투

Hanging out Kimchi to dry

surprising garden between residences and motorway

Between the railway lands of Yongsan station, the Han River park and four lanes of traffic is the Ichon Ichon si pom chong san APT. Judging by the new apt cropping up around this complex this APT looks like it is in line to be demolished, and the land redeveloped. In comparison to newer APTs, this generation of building has more of a relationship to the city around it - a row of shops and a mixed use old block sits above it, there is some layering between the apartment blocks and the city beyond.

More Model

Modelling of the Samsung Remian APT I visited last month (Will post about that soon!) Juxtaposing the exterior and the interior of the building, at different scales. This is in order to deconstruct and exaggerate its features to help me develop some kind of alternative architectural vocabulary. Exploring the wrapping of space and the thickness of the floors but the lack of layering between extreme scales outside and inside. In many ways there are similarities with traditional housing - rooms are flexible and open planned but have distinct environmental qualities that dictate potential activities....

Design for a Post-Neo Liberal City

Particularly relevant to the APT landscape of Korea.....


From being strategic sites for the implementation of neoliberal policy, cities may possibly become a new political arena for experiments in democracy—and thus require a new design. Designers continue to hold back with criticism and proposals, but the time has come to redefine the role of design in a social city—and to take action. Design in the context of cities could redefine itself as a search for an alternative urban practice, beyond the techniques and the ideology of crisis-ridden, late-capitalist urbanism
Jesko Fezer

see *-* full article -------> http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/153

Collaging parts of city

A collage of the exterior space of three APT complexes, exploring the repetition in the vertical and horizontal planes. The alternately intimidating and mundane character of these in between spaces.

Model

Reinterpret an APT as a series of landscapes with different textures and qualities. Investigating the wrapping of internal space, and the gap between the structure and the interior and the lack of subtle layering between conditions.