The March Hare in Alice in Wonderland is a multifaceted character who guides the tale, inviting Alice on a curious induction to a world of adventure. Through the stimulation of Alice's imagination, the March Hare subverts the landscapes of daily life, and the new world begins to deviate from everything Alice holds as familiar. Cheongdam march Rabbit was inspired by the March Hare.

Located in the busy alley of Cheongdam-dong in Seoul, this building not only needs to respond with sensitivity to its surrounding environment but also establish itself as an unfamiliar landscape in order to envigorate the street itself.

In addition, the building, as a neighborhood living facility, has to cope with the potential changes to its internal program, such as offices, retail shops, cafes, and as a residential quarter. For that purpose, a reduction of the common area, including the elevator, the staircase, and a public bathroom has been proposed and the maximization of the rental area will enable sufficient operation of all the building's required functions.

Although the building seems to by vertically stacked floor-by-floor when it is seen at its care, its overall volume appears to be the combination of fragmented space. A spare space at the rear of the building has been planned to be used as a new core when more than two floors are rented together.

This small building will play a complex role, much like the March Hare, in order to invent new narratives for the city center, rather than existing under one finished and fixed function.

Architects : L'EAU design Location : Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea Architects in Charge : Kim Dong-jin Area : 8987.0 m2 Project Year : 2014 Design : Lee Sanghak , Ju Ikhyeon, Jung Donghui, Yoon Jihye, Kwon Jungyeol, Kim Minji Finishing : Monocouche, White zinc panel Construction : JEHYO Structure Engineer : SDM Structural Engineering Mechanical & Electrical Engineer : HANA Consulting Engineers Co.,LTD. Construction supervision : L’EAU design Co., Ltd. Client : Kwak Junghui

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L'EAU Design is a group seeking after such environment as falling under comprehensive sense and attempt the relationship with architectural design.

'environment' includes meanings of social and cultural conditions that influence in human lifestyle as well as ecological and build environment.

L'EAU Design, since its establishment in 2000, has been pursuing a total design focused on 'Architecture and Urbanism' 'Renovation and Interior Design' 'Enviroment Design' in order to architecturally design diverse concerns amid the better 'human environment', which is based on our research about social and cultural background of human.

L'EAU design

The site is close to the Chungpyong Lake and has hilly mountain on the back and view towards to the lake in front. As most of sites on hills in Korea, Leaning House site also has a mismatch between topography and orientation.

Therefore, one of the first things to solve was the siting of the house in the position where it can have southern sunlight as well as view towards the lake.

The southern part of the program box is lifted up so that the house can get enough sunlight from the South while the house itself orients to the East following the topography of the site. By lifting the box up, a new space was gained where Glass Box for family room can be inserted.

Topology & Typology ​

In the Leaning House, instead of putting a separate structure to the mass, the form of massing works as a structural system. The “Leaning Box” has a frame structure at the envelope of the box, and is supported by the vertical “Glass Box” so that it can eliminate redundant structural element.

This concept is driven by the architectural vocabulary “Topology & Typology” that PRAUD has been developing. The “Topology & Typology” is a theoretical experiment that is based on Anthony Vidler’s theory on typology. “Topology” focuses on the form of architecture regarding to the relationship between solid and void, while “Typology” develops the system of the building.

In short, “Topology & Typology” tries to find out the harmony between the architectural form and the system that can be called as “Contemporarism”, architectural language of contemporary architecture, just as Modernism became the architectural language not the style in a certain period of time.

Third-space

By lifting up the program box, a new space “Third Space” is gained. The original requirement from the client was to have bedroom, reading room and living room, and with having the third space, it was able to put a new living room inside and terrace on the outside.

The “Third Space” provides more gradation for the house. The outside terrace is not fully public yet not fully private space either. Also, inside living room is also a semi-public area within the house before getting into more private area. This variation in gradation gives deeper spatial quality in a small house project.

Material

It is extremely important in the Leaning House to have the reading of the “box.” In many cases, including projects with Modernism, envelops are treated separate, and therefore, the facade has one design and material, and the roof has another. However, to challenge the convention, the Leaning House treats all surfaces as part of one box and has same material throughout the surfaces with continuous pattern. Zinc is selected to wrap the whole box with a single material as it can be used for roof, siding and exterior ceiling. And continuous diagonal lines across the envelop enhances the reading of the box.

Architects : PRAUD Location : Jinan-gun Architects in Charge : Dongwoo Yim, Rafael Luna Area : 127.0 sqm Photographs : Kyungsub Shin

PRAUD was founded in 2010 by Rafael Luna and Dongwoo Yim as a design and research firm focusing on understanding the effects of urban transformations and developing architectural responses through various studies from architectural theories to urban research.

Its own architectural language Topology & Typology has been deeply developed through many projects, both competitions and built projects, as well as through series of seminars. Parallel to developing architectural theory, PRAUD pursues various urban researches to find tangent point between hybrid architecture and urban transformation.

These interdisciplinary investigations have been published and exhibited internationally and let PRAUD to construct a unique perspective on exploring progressive "contemporarism" in architecture, urbanism and design. ​

PRAUD

‘Platform_monsant’ project is located at a small residential area in Aeweol, Jeju, where quiet communities are situated far away from the cities. This area in Jeju Island is still holding the original characteristic of the volcanic island which has had broad open space and native plants. We hoped this building would be integrated to the surrounding landscape as a starting point of this project.

Our goal was not to emphasize the architecture by landscape, but to highlight the landscape by architecture. The existing nature reserve at the south and west of the site, and the steep downward hill oriented toward the back of the reserve enabled us to establish a direction of response: respecting the existing space by the least engagement, extending its permanence through the present toward the future. Here, architecture is no more or less than a medium to maintain and extend the existing context.

The building layout accepts the existing space and topography as it is, with the box form located along the slope as a simple volume for rest and contemplation. The refined volume is designed to embody a neutral piece of architecture through concrete and glass, thus offered as a device to absorb the characteristic of the existing site. The contrast of basalt wall – an architectural material with locality given by nature – with the crushed concrete and the glass, delivers what story the building wants to speak of.

We designed the first building of the whole master plan by constructing distinct horizontality along the north-south axis. The eastern and northern facades do not have windows, but the western and southern ones are mostly transparent. Also, the great windows connecting the inside and the outside are at once a functional device to ensure daylighting inside and the main medium to draw the outside (the beautiful sea and sunset of Jeju) close to the inside (artificial space for users).

The windows can be closed in a row or not, i.e. whether they are opened or not determines the character of space as implicative or extensive, thus creating a new paradigm and relationship between the building and the site.

The roof terrace of the single-story building extends the surrounding environment, serving as an observatory open in all directions. Also, it is responsible for the building insulation all year round, augmenting the visual continuity between the road, the house, and the site. On the roof terrace, a translucent cube as an extension of the skylight inside plays such functional roles as actively projecting the temporally-changing daylight into the inside, while emanating the artificial light inside into the terrace outside at night.

Back wall _ This great, tough, and attractive concrete was reborn with strong inspiration from the site. This is a transformation into an artwork, or a main intervention to extend toward the inside, having a distinct character of roughness. The wall escapes from the existing role of a boundary and now offers a new space where users can take a rest, while the vertical axis planned along the wall arouses the users' curiosity as well as making them look upward and their movement go toward a new space.

Reflecting glass _ The great reflecting glass made of black stainless-steel frame was designed to enable opening or closing by the time of day, fending off the view from outside as well as preventing the views of users inside and outside from crossing each other, thus providing those inside with free environment where they can take a special rest in the projection of beautiful landscape of surrounding nature.

Reflection of external environment in the inside _ Such beautiful landscape elements reflecting the locality of Jeju as stone wall, volcanic sand, and basalt rock were reinterpreted into the motif of this project. The trace of the existing site hollowed inside the southern floor serves as a device of awakening a primitive sense of nature and as a medium to accept its ceaseless change. Avoiding formalized actions and ideal predictions on architecture, this project encounters nature through the void space in a meaningful relationship, not in any superficial dimension of information.

Architects : platform_a Location : Aewol-eup, Jeju-do, South Korea Architect in Charge : Jincheol Han Area : 198.0 sqm Project Year : 2015 Photographs : Yoon Joonhawn

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