geisha transplant

Alvaro Siza, Carlos Castanheira and Kim Jong Kyu's museum for the client, Amore Pacific in Korea. The client's grandmother initiated the collection  when the cosmetics company first began. Today, the collection is immense with national value and interest. The dark brick building are all the staff training facilities and the improvised museum, displaying only a small part of the collection. The rest of the ever-expanding collection is in storage, in the basement. There is also another small building, which is isolated, as if pushed into a corner, to the northeast, serves as accommodation for anyone who comes here from a distance to do training or research. The exterior area is characterised by a huge collection of trees and shrubs that the client buys or transplants here from elsewhere.

sky light

BCHO Architects has design a 14m x 17m concrete box, buried in the ground and contains 6, 1-pyeong, rooms and two earth filled courtyards. This ‘small house’ is open to the courtyard which is open to the sky. The one pyeong rooms originated from the size of one kan (6×6 ja; 1 ja = approx. 30cm) which are just large enough for an adult to lie down straight. The house has a small kitchen, a study, two resting rooms, a bathroom with a wooden tub and toilet, and a wash room. The rooms are all adjacent to each other and open directly to the earth filled courtyard. Connecting rooms can be joined to create a bigger room. The house doors are intentionally small so that entering the house requires the visitor to make their body smaller.

Yoon Dong-joo, the Korean poet would have been proud of this house. A house of the sky and its respect to the earth, sky and stars above.

mapping contours

Another project from Unsandong Architects. Unlike their previous 'skinscape' idea, this focuses on topology. Quote:

'We know that we exist not as an individual, but as a unity of many, or even numerous individuals connected to each other. Creating an Publisher’s space is not just setting up the exhibition and office space and putting books in it, but drawing a map that covers all the works in the venue. It depends on the map how the viewer will appreciate the space and books. Through the , I have sought to insert ‘the vessel of new topography’ into homogeneous space. ‘The vessel of new topography.’ an intervention of a new imagination into the space, works as imaginary texts like those of Jorge Luis Borges. We will make-the “Contour Topography” a space for the’ new experience. The Contour space will reflect the real topography by applying the abstract image of it to the floor. The theatrical “Topography” works as canvas for the life, but changes through various new media include book. The multi-purpose topography is an interactive map of office, club, show, seminar, lecture, performance, etc.'

open wound

In Seoul, Korea a so called 'canvas' wall could be seen from a distance. Unsandong Architects have experimented with a piece of artwork 'canvas' that can be thought as 2 dimensional medium and developed a spatial skin for a gallery. Confused yet? These works are nothing new and similar works can be seen by Architects searching for the new generation of space out of structure between the folded and smooth, continuous skin. These 'skinscape' can be initiated by acknowledging the urban fabric as the envelope structure - looking at the city as an enormous folded surface, continuous and sequential. Now, ‘Skinscape’ is an experimental text attempting to combined the Architectural skin and the loose meaning of the term ’scape’.

The Architects for Gallert Yeh have used this concept as a medium to provide and exhibit information onto the huge canvas attracting outside events. The twists and intertwine of the facade creates a spatial complexity like a crack on a skin.