Höweler+Yoon Architecture have designed the Bridge House, a multi-generational family home in McLean, Virginia.

Sited between a suburban development and a protected wooded area, the Bridge House appears as a single family home from the front. Its rear elevation reveals an internal organization designed to accommodate three generations living together under one roof—or in this case, within three volumes that act as a number of roofs.

These three volumes are devices that frame views through the house of the dramatically sloped wooded site. Views from the suburban street through to the sloped landscape are informed by the programmatic volumes of the main floor and the bridge-like volume above, which frame the scene from interior and exterior vantage points.

Each tubular volume contains a carefully organized relationship of private and public areas that correspond to the family’s generational structure. The smaller volume of the ground floor is the private master suite for the grandparents (the clients) who are first-generation Korean-American immigrants to the United States. The larger volume of the ground floor is the collective public area of the multi-generational home, which includes all shared programs, such as the kitchen, family room, dining room and garage.

Physically bridging between these two spaces is a long volume that houses the family’s second and third generations. Two master suites bookend the bar volume: one for their visiting daughter and one for their live-in son and daughter-in-law who reside in the space with the clients’ two grandchildren. The grandchildren live in a “Jack and Jill” suite and have access to the upper-level outdoor space, which is set between the master bedrooms.

The void created under the bridge-like volume feels like an extension of the outdoors and allows the landscape to move through the house, blurring outside and inside space. This transitional space extends into an outdoor room visually supported between the lower volumes and exterior stairs, which descend into the landscape. All three tubular volumes face the woods so that bedrooms and communal spaces frame views for all generations within the home. The three-volume organization provides private, outdoor space for each generation to enjoy the landscape from a variety of perspectives and elevations.

The front patio extends through the ground floor volume onto a back terrace to create a formal shared outdoor space, which also provides steps leading into the landscape. A private roof balcony extends from the second floor master bedroom to provide an intimate outdoor space for the clients’ son and daughter-in-law. Another large roof terrace is projected from the grandchildren’s suite, which creates a raised outdoor gathering area. By designing a visual continuum, the adjacent landscape extends into the functional living spaces of an otherwise compact house.

Spaces facing the back of the house feature full panoramic views of the rear ravine while the opaque materiality of the front elevation creates privacy from neighbors. Volumes have triple-glazed window walls and utilize the beveled detail of their tubular geometry to create an overhang, which minimizes solar gain in the summer and maximize solar gain in the winter.

The angle of the bevel is calibrated to mediate solar gain on all full-glass facades to create a minimal edge detail. As tubes oriented towards the woods, the volumes are further defined by their sharp end articulation and the material differentiation of their exterior cladding.

The framing surface of the tubes is clad in custom-bent anodized aluminum vertical panels, which reflect the style of tongue-and-groove vertical panels common in the neighborhood. The infill panels are custom-bent horizontal “shingles” of anodized bronze aluminum, which create a rich and varied color spectrum throughout the day.

The interior features several elements made from recycled material, including tables and benches custom-fabricated from wood salvaged from another site. We also designed an interior staircase and fireplace fabricated from hot-rolled steel and wood. These architectural components vertically connect the volumes of the house both structurally and spatially and pin together this three-volume, three-generation home.

Credits Project Architect : Yoonhee Cho Location : McLean, VA, United States Design Team : Meredith Miller, Ryan Murphy, Parker Lee, Jennifer Chuong, Cyrus Dochow, Thena Tak, Sungwoo Jang, Casey Renner, Matthew Chua, Photographer : Jeff Wolfram Year : 2014

Höweler+Yoon Architecture

Designed by the architect`s office TUNEplanning, the multi-storey lounge bar in Seoul, Korea, was completed in 2013. Dayang Sanghoi was planned as an exhibition hall at first, but later it was created as a private lounge through several changes of plan.

The generous expanse offers space for a stage on a mezzanine and can be used for client’s leisure and party with acquaintances. The architects had to build the house a ground up high with embarkment because of the high and slope topography and the surrounded mountain Bukhansan. Nature announces its presence everywhere in the house. The ceiling shows plywood rings which are reiterated by the winding lines of the oak.

The space was designed to put nature at the forefront of visitors’ experience, a natural rock wall provides the backdrop for a seated bar and a pine tree descends from the upper mezzanine into the heart of the lounge. Paired with the polished concrete floors and lightly-stained wooden furniture, the organic material in Dayang Sanghoi offers a gentle, relaxing ambiance.

TUNEplanning have utilised the uneven topography of the Pyeongchang-dong region in Seoul, Korea, to build a space that magnifies the scale of its surrounding mountain, creating a safe haven from the city’s bustling atmosphere.

The building was planned as an exhibition hall at first, but was later created as a private lounge through several changes of plan including the office, company training centre, studio, restaurant and cafe. Appropriately dubbed Dayang Sanghoi (Dayang meaning Diversity in Korean), this venue was designed to comfortably hold a variety of diverse events.

Having seamlessly integrated a plethora of natural elements into the final building, Dayang Sanghoi features a giant natural rock, open plan flooring and heavy pine elements. Above all, the space was designed to put nature at the forefront of visitors’ experience.

A natural rock wall provides the backdrop for a seated bar and a pine tree descends from the upper mezzanine into the lounge. Even the furniture was placed haphazardly, as though formed by nature and without any intentional plan.

Project description Pyeongchang-dong at the northern end of Jongro-gu, Pyeongchang was warehouse of Seonhyecheong, a government office which had managed receipt and disbursement of rice, cloth and coin used as means of tax payment in Joseon Dynasty, under the name of Daidongmi, Daidongpo and Daidongjeon each.

As its name derived from Pyeongchang tells, this area had to build a ground up high with embarkment because of its high and slope topography as a village of power and wealth. At the end of the road, we can meet an interesting alley leading to a house of Pyeongchang-dong along the winding ridge of mountain Bukhansan edge which shows the views one by one.

Huge rockwall of this house 'The piano was drinking, not me' introduced on this magazine in Aug. 2009, is assimilating with nature while accumulating time with rain and wind as if it has been located there originally. Window and wall sloped obliquely stagger zigzag as they are drunk on nature like tipsy voice and lyrics of Tom Waits' song, 'The piano has been drinking, not me'. Whole space was embraced by metaphorical expression whether the wall is sloped or I am sloped. The designer created underground space of this house newly over the years.

Rocky mountain in the middle of Jongno-gu, heart of Seoul. Mountain is nothing but mountain in the distance. However, it becomes an object of faith when it spreads in front of people. The mountain Bukhansan formed by granites adapting to the times may be one of mountains which have such an energy.

Bukhansan is the highest mountain in the suburbs of Seoul, has magnificent geographical features, has been guardian mountain of Seoul from old times, and also was called Sambongsan and Samgaksan because it consists of three peaks. (Sam means three, bong means peak, and gak means angle in Korean) As it says 'celebrated temples are situated in celebrated mountain', Bukhansan houses considerable places sacred to Buddha here and there.

Dayang Sanghoi was planned as exhibition hall at first, but it is created as private lounge through several changes of plan to office, company training institute, studio, restaurant and cafe for some years. Dayang Sanghoi is a space for client's leisure and party with acquaintances. It also has a stage on mezzanine for performance. Literally, it is a space which can hold every events diversely and keeps the natural feeling as it is.

Therefore, it is named Dayang Sanghoi. (Dayang means diversity in Korean) It can be said that Dayang Shanghoi is an episode of previous project. While I expressed artificial concrete motivated by natural rook at the previous project, dense pine trees in the rocky mountain are the motif of this project. I wanted to show the natural raw materials such as stone and tree as they are.

Artificial nature is doubtedly an imitation. I admitted it is an imitation and wanted it to look like an imitation. Therefore, I aim at fundamental meeting of natural stuff and artificial stuff by showing the processed material property. I placed furnitures unintentionally just like the nature formed without any intentional plan.

Architects : TUNEplanning Location : Pyeongchang-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea Area : 84.47 sqm Project Year : 2013 Photographs : Jeong Taeho

TUNEplanning

The dense suburban housing in Pangyo-dong, an area 15 minutes south of central Seoul, leaves little room for parks and greenery. Luckily, Jo Jinman Architects designed Layered Terrace House with a built-in solution to this problem; it includes staggered levels, sheltering 17 different rooms and three external terraces and courtyards, slotting everything into a site of just 13 x 17m.

Eight family members occupy this house, including grandparents, aunt and uncle, father, mother and two young children. Each resident had different requirements and visions of their perfect home; the grandparents, for example, were keen to get a kitchen garden and study, whereas the young family needed a separate living space, playroom and study for the children.

Constrained by strict planning regulations that dictated going no more than two storeys high, the architects carefully arranged spaces within a multi-layered split level property with a roof terrace. The spacious result feels more like a three-storey house.

The design is ‘dynamic and responsive to accommodate a broad range of fixed and changing activities’, explain the architects. Wide maple stairs link the downstairs lounge to the half-floor of bedrooms above – doubling up as cinema seats for a projected screen. Meanwhile the playroom factors in the children’s present height, enabling two levels within a 3.6m high space, but with a removable mezzanine which will transform the space into a master bedroom as they grow up.

A central courtyard unites all spaces, with interior facades of striped leftover Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) creating an intricate timber pattern, which rises up to the roof. Within the rooms, a modest composition of white walls and furnishings, and maple wood floors brings all spaces together, in a continuous layout that cleverly avoids corridors and wasted space.

The introverted house's elevations are rendered dark grey and feature few openings towards the road. Views are largely focused inwards, on the tranquil hidden courtyard and upper terraces, though small balconies and windows puncture the austere external surface, helping natural cross-ventilation throughout. Structural walls and floor slabs are visible on the external facades, revealing a hint of the internal arrangement.

Architects: Jo Jinman Architects Location: Bundang, Korea Site Area: 231m² Building area:109m² Completion: 2015 Interior and Furniture: Jo Jinman Architects Design team: Ukee Hong, Cha Seung Yeon, Photograph: Kyungsub Shin All material: Jo Jinman Architects

Jo Jinman Architects