MVRDV has completed construction on The Imprint, a new 2-building art-entertainment complex in close proximity to Seoul’s Incheon Airport. Featuring a nightclub in one building and indoor theme park in the other, the windowless structures feature three key design elements: imprints of the façade features of surrounding buildings, lifted entrances, and a golden entrance spot covering one corner of the nightclub building.

MVRDV’s The Imprint is part of the larger Paradise City complex of 6 buildings in total, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometre away from South Korea’s largest airport.

Given the proposed programme of the 2 buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that still integrated with the other buildings in the complex. The design of The Imprint therefore arises from a simple question: can we design an expressive façade that connects with its surroundings even though it has no windows?

The design achieves this by projecting the façades of the surrounding buildings in the complex, which are ‘draped’ over the simple building forms and plazas like a shadow, and ‘imprinted’ as a relief pattern onto the façades.

“By placing, as it were, surrounding buildings into the facades of our buildings and in the central plaza, we connect The Imprint with the neighbours,” says Winy Maas, principal and co-founder of MVRDV. “This ensures coherence. Paradise City is not a collection of individual objects such as Las Vegas, but a real city.”

In order to achieve the desired ‘imprint’ of the surrounding buildings, the façade of The Imprint is constructed of glass-fibre reinforced concrete panels. As many of the 3,869 panels are unique, the construction required moulds to be individually produced using MVRDV’s 3D modelling files from the design phase. Once installed, these panels were painted white in order to emphasise the relief in the design.

As Winy Maas explains: “Two months ago most of the cladding was done and client said, ‘this is an art piece. What is interesting about that is that they are looking for that momentum—that entertainment can become art or that the building can become artistic in that way. What, then, is the difference between architecture an art? The project plays with that and I think that abstraction is part of it, but it has to surprise, seduce and it has to calm down.”

Architects : MVRDV Location : 186, Yeongjonghaeannam-ro 321beon-gil, Jung-gu, Incheon, South Korea Principal-in-charge : Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs Partner : Wenchian Shi Design Team : María López Calleja with Daehee Suk, Xiaoting Chen, Kyosuk Lee, Guang Ruey Tan, Stavros Gargaretas, Mafalda Rangel, Dong Min Lee Area : 9800.0 m2 Project Year : 2018 Photographs : Ossip van Duivenbode Co-Architect : GANSAM Architects & Partners, South Korea Facade Consultant : VS-A Group Ltd Panelization Consultant : WITHWORKS GFRC : Techwall
 Lighting : L’Observatoire International

The golden spot is the project’s most obvious and attention-grabbing expressive element, even catching the eyes of passengers coming in to land at Incheon Airport. The golden colour is achieved simply, by using gold paint instead of white, and is reinforced by the lighting of the facades at night: while the majority of the façade is lit from below, the gold spot is highlighted from above.“Even in the night, visitors from abroad, landing in Incheon, are welcomed by this ray of light”, says Maas.

The entrances, where the façades are lifted like a curtain to reveal mirrored ceilings and glass media floors, exude a sense of the excitement happening inside. “Reflection and theatricality are therefore combined,” concludes Maas. “With our design, after the nightly escapades, a zen-like silence follows during the day, providing an almost literally reflective situation for the after parties. Giorgio de Chirico would have liked to paint it, I think."

MVRDV is a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1993. The name is an acronym for the founding members: Winy Maas (1959), Jacob van Rijs (1964) and Nathalie de Vries (1965). Maas and Van Rijs worked at OMA, De Vries at Mecanoo before starting MVRDV.

MVRDV

Paju book city studio M 2017

Different to Paju 1st Book City which was centering publishing and printing companies, Paju 2nd Book City is created with movie and media companies. Paju M Studio is planed for studio, office and dormitory for video special effects company. Book City has a rule that arrangement, material, type of open space and the other point of the building have to be a part of the city under the basic direction that buildings make scenery of the city by getting together.

Yoonseul: Manridong Reflecting Seoul 2017

‘Yoonseul: Manridong Reflecting Seoul’ Project characterize location of Manridong in Seoul and develop its characteristic in the field of cultural geography. For this, we tried to embody the present and past of young cultural events covering art and commercial section based on SNS across Seoul after 2010 here and experiment to guess changing culture of Seoul in the future.

Yoonseul: Manridong Reflecting Seoul 2017

Since Manridong public art project is not permanent installation, ‘Recoding’ which keep a record of temporary content is important. Also, recoding how this work and project change the environment of Manridong is one of the important parts of ‘Yoonseul’ project. Under the idea of “A Place is not completed thing but getting completed and it’s the result of processing and practicing”, we suggest PLACE MAKING which contains ART, ACTION, ARCHIVE in one circulation.

Geumcheon Poly Park (SSing SSing SSing) 2016

Roof Sentiment 2015

The front yard (madang, 마당) of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) Seoul face the Gyeongbokgung Palace which is very strong site-specific context. There are three layers superimposed on this front yard which used to belong to Jongchinbu (종친부, Office of the Royal Genealogy in Lee dynasty), now is the open public space of MMCA Seoul, and be a platform for Y.A.P in the summer season. These multi-layered placeness and time is a key issue of SoA’s practice.

Geodesic Chair-Vault for the Interspace Dialogue 2013 Interspace Dialogue is a project to install a small-scale screening room for the experimental film festival Off and Free inside Seoul Museum of Art. Plastic parasol chair is one of typical temporary furniture especially to be used for outdoor big events (concert, performance, campaign, etc.) SoA rent 400 white plastic chairs and make a temporary theater inside the crystal room in the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA). The temporary theater is designed to be geodesic chair-vault inside which people sit on the same plastic parasol chair and watch the experimental film of Marina Abramovic.

The theater made of only chairs provoke the question, ‘‘what is the theater?’ For the geodesic chair-vault, we invent new tectonics of stacking chairs converting the compressive force into tension force. We make a space in between below chair and upper chair due to tie a cable which is shorter than the length of chair leg. So we can control the stacking space. The existing details which are holes for drainage on the parasol chair and handle for moving on the backside of chair are used as the vault detail. Finally tensile forced vault construction using 400 pieces of plastic parasol chairs are made. After film festival done, these whole chairs be returned.

Society of Architecture (SoA) was founded in 2010 at Seoul. SoA is young architect group working on projects about environment construction in various size of scale based on analysis from the social condition of architecture and urbanism. Based on understanding about modern life, we are searching for new possibilities of architecture that can make it more enrich.

Society of Architecture

The 6000m2 site has a 10m slope. In order to make active use of the inclined plane, a horizontal mass was inserted in the core. The horizontal mass consisting of a gallery café and a pool at the upper part serves as a stylobate for the cutting area.

An atypical mass of six buildings was put on the stylobate linked to the gentle slope. The atypical mass with a motif of mysterious stone statues, Moai in Chilean Easter Island is remembered as a milestone of Mother Nature. The outer surface was painted in yellow with a stark contrast to the natural color while the inner atypical space was painted in homogeneous white to maximize the diffusion of light.

The light that comes through the scuttle and the side slit window induces the volume of the space in various ways. The ground floor consisted of an open deck, a stand-alone swimming pool and a kitchen. The extended upper floor linked bathroom and bedroom so as to allow a visitor to look at the surrounding landscape.

The space of Moai is a place to confess, which feels calm. It has a spacious ground in which people can assimilate with nature and walk along the light and sound of the universe and surrounding landscape.

The Moai, located in Gapyeong, an hour and a half away from Seoul, provides workers running urban life with an opportunity to take a rest in the bosom of nature.

The Moai is perceived as a milestone by people headed for the Arboretum and remains as a memorable objet. The mass of the Moai located changing its course little by little along the gentle slope is emphasized as a consistent form. It sends a more obvious message by repeating a mono-typical shape rather than a dispersed image of various planes or forms.

Architect: Seung Min Koo Project team: studio KOOSSINO Location : 438-2, Henghyun-ri, Sangmyeon, Gapyeong, Gyungki, Korea Site area : 3258.00 sqm Building area : 594.49 sqm Gross floor area : 559.05 sqm Structure : Reinforced Concrete

Architect seungmin koo graduated from Mokwon university in korea. After he had professional career at ARAM Square, open his Studio Koossino in 2000.

He is teaching architectural design and drawing in Bajae and Induk university at the moment. He is fascinating both architecture and drawing that interactive stimulation for each other, not just drawing itself but translation of architectural peculation. koossino published 6books include cubic croquis1,2(2008) and more recently photo essay MOAI (asymmetric holiday house).

Koossino also has several solo exhibitions in Korea and Japan. he is combining architecture, exhibition and publishing with cubic croquis subject which indulge in a sustainable architectural value, build his own identity.