RW Concrete Church is located in Byeollae, a newly developed district near northeast Seoul, Korea. It evokes a feeling, not of a city already completed, but a building on a new landscape somewhere between nature and artificiality, or between creation and extinction. The church, which will be a part of the new urban fabric, is concretized through a flow of consecutive spaces based on simple shape, single physical properties and programs.

Scheme

The use of simple volumes and a single material adapted to the site collects a range of desires created in the newly developed district. Concrete, which is a structure as well as a basic finishing material for the building, indicates a property that penetrates the entire church, and at the same time, a firm substance that grasps the gravity of the ground it stands on, which is contrary in concept from abstraction. Concrete reveals its solidity as a metaphor for religious values which are not easily changed in an era of unpredictability.

Moreover, the cross as a religious symbol substitutes for an enormous bell tower and is integrated with the physical property of the building through the empty space at the upper part of the staircase. The minimized symbol implies the internal tension of the space.

The first thing encountered upon entering the building is the empty concrete yard on the ground floor. This is a flexible space that acts as a venue for interaction with the community while also accommodating varying religious programs. By the time you become accustomed to the dark as you walk past this empty yard, and climb the three stories of closed stairs, you come face to face with a space full of light.

This interior space has a cantilever structure protruding 6.9m, and you must pass through this hall before entering the chapel. This cantilevered space is a physical as well as spiritual transition that connects daily life with religion. The chapel creates a sense of peace with a single space, using a slope that is not so steep, evoking the feeling of attending a worship service on a low hill. The subdued light gleaming through the long and narrow clerestory embraces the entire chapel and lends vigor to the static space.

Section

Architects : NAMELESS Architecture Location : Byeollae-myeon, Namyangju-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea Architect in Charge : Unchung Na, Sorae Yoo Collaborating Architect : Jplus (Jungtaek Lim, Hwataek Jung) Area : 3095.0 sqm Project Year : 2013 Photographs : Rohspace / NAMELESS Structural Consultant : Mido Structural Consultants Mechanical Consultant : One Engineering Client : RockWon Church

NAMELESS Architecture

The darak-darak neighborhood facility by architecture studio THE_SYSTEM LAB is located in a collective housing area near gaerong gtatio, songpa-gu, seoul. the building owner, a salary man with his family, has requested a place where he can guarantee profits for the years to come. his initial vision is one of a pleasant attic with profitable shops and studios on the first floor, as well as offices for rent. however, his sixty square meters site is not spacious enough to accommodate all programs. regardless, the studio has managed to make the most out of it with the limited building area.

The guiding concept behind THE_SYSTEM LAB‘s project is to create, what the owner terms it, a ‘mini mixed-used building’ with suitable housing for all. as paradigms have changed, the idea of ‘building my house’ — once regarded as an exclusive property of the rich — has become many people’s desire. the difference here is that, rather than demanding lordly mansions, many wish to construct affordable flats. hence, the owner has made far larger spaces than estimated to provide an adequate sense of openness. in addition, the building’s balcony is extended north and south — with a linear diagonal wall placed in the interiors to maximize room areas. in the end, every house has a high ceiling in a gable form and an upper stair not estimated in the gross area, which means that few attics are integrated in each.

The outdoor entrance includes parking space for five vehicles and a café run by the owner’s wife on the first floor, while second and third levels provide offices for rent and studios. by painting the pilotis, window frames, doors and floor stones with a dark color, the owner intends to get the lower part organized and mimic the image of a building floating in the air. the ceiling facing the south and frontal balconies maximize the sense of space. the owner’s house is located on the last three floors, including the attic. the fourth level consists of interior stairs leading to the fifth floor, an irish style kitchen and family room. a stair case connecting the last two floors and a diagonal wall create a high ceiling of eight meters — vertically connecting each room as a whole house.

For construction, the architects have used concrete as the main material of the building. to increase exterior insulation performance and prevent water leak, a colored steel sheet is added like a blanket to cover the mass from the end of the roof till the first floor ceiling along the oblique face. finally, it has been difficult to find scenic views within the collective housing area but by allocating balcony spaces excluded in gross estimation and round windows with as many doors possible along with oblique line, the building is well-lit and commands sky view.

THE SYSTEM LAB

invisible barn, An architectural folly merging into nature

Location: Sagehen Creek Field Station, Truckee, CA Project Team: +Andrew Ma Dimension: 24' x 3' x 12' / 72 sf Budget: $10,000 Structural Engineering: Sunghwa Han, PE, SE, LEED AP Construction: Dan Sayler + stpmj Completed Year: June 2015 Client: UC Berkeley, Sagehen Creek Field Station

Invisible Barn is a site-specific design proposal that re-contextualizes the landscape of the site by projecting the landscape on the structural proposition. A barn shaped-wooden structure is sheeted with reflective film on its surfaces. This mirror-finished folly is placed in the middle of the grove and reflects its surrounding environment: different species of trees and plants, sky, ground and the seasonal changes of the site.

The reflection of the folly within its enclosed grove allows the structure to smoothly assimilate into the nature. The incisions that penetrate through the folly allow visitors to maneuver in, out, and around the structure. Invisible Barn is a folly that loses its man-made architectural presence in nature but adds novel experience and interaction to the users.


Invisible Barn is placed in the core of the grove which lies on the passageway of the site. Around the circumference of the grove there are a dozen of trees in similar size and equal spacing from one another. Due to the similarity of its size and placement of the trees, the projection on the mirrored surface is similar to what people would see without the folly. The visual illusion that blurs the perceptual boundary between the folly and the site, allows the folly to be disappeared and invisible in nature, reconstructing the landscape of the site.

The barn is shaped as a skinny and long parallelogram to elude the dense trees. The beveled folly has openings with various sizes and depths that connote windows and doors. These solid and void on the folly’s envelope, reflective film and plywood-framed opening, accentuate the openings. This creates a visual trick that the framed openings are floating on air in the grove. Through these apertures visitors perceive the subtle differences between the real and the mirrored landscape, understanding the depth of the grove and other art installations over the site.

The apertures may suggest viewing frames, passages, and benches and visitors are intended to interact physically and visually with them. In addition the reflective sheathing is aluminized polyester film which has more than 90% of UV reflectivity in the range of 200-400nm wavelength. Though human does not recognize this UV reflection but it is perceivable to birds so that prevents them from colliding onto the structure.


At the intersections between sculpture and architecture, Invisible Barn loses its architectural shape in nature but encourages visitors to interact with it through overlapping in materials and building techniques between the two disciplines. As a static structure, the folly uses its materiality and the site context to draw a new scene derived from the existing landscape. As people begin to move away, toward and within the folly, the users will slowly recognize a space within the grove that reflects, mirrors, and animates the landscape of the park.

stpmj is an idea-driven design practice based in New York and Seoul. The office is found by Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim with the belief that the work explores a new perspective built from careful observations of material, structure and program expanding to the social, cultural, environmental, and economic phenomena of our time. stpmj navigates on uncharted territory of material experiments focused on its sensoriality and performativity expanding our conventional material culture to broader built environment. We seek provocative works that speculate on a broad range of investigations, leveraging the potential of materials in the stage of concept and production.

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