The Jeongok Prehistory museum houses several hundred artifacts of Achuelean and proto-Acheulean hand axe technology in a series of suspended galleries cut diagonally through the building. The site of the building is located within the territory of the archeological excavation fields of the museums subject matter.
The strategy of the building addresses this site condition both physically and conceptually through the suspension of museum above the sensitive site and in the creation of an internal landscape of intimate viewing chambers for the artifacts.
The structural system acts as a habitable space frame that develops into an internally porous spatial field. The field of galleries is interspersed with a series of porous light wells connecting the space of the interior to a sense of the natural environment as a background for the display of the prehistoric human artifacts.
Location: Yeoncheon-gun, Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea
Program: Public museum and archive
Site: 6.4 hectares [15.8 acres]
Building: 5,000sqm [54,000sqf]
Projected Cost: 25 million USD
Status: 3rd place winning competition proposal
Design Architect: Lonn Combs and Rona Easton
Project Team: Sherman Adams, Andrew Bollinger, Jeremy Carvalho, Vicky Chan, John Ivanoff, Peter Van Hage
Easton+Combs
