March to December, everyday life in Greece happens outside. Atriums, courtyards, balconies become extensions of private interiors. In Seoul, few decades of West- & Japan-oriented development have transformed the city into a megacity of 10 million inhabitants. To meet the density needs, natural light and air become negotiable commodities. As more and more time is spent in interior, air conditioned spaces, more and more ‘’artificial nature’’ appears in malls, workspaces or public buildings. ’Nature’’ appears as image (real or fake plants), as sound (real or recorded bird sounds) or as smell (real or fake bread). The more fake, the more beautiful!
The project proposes a series of different courtyards and ‘’interior gardens’’, as semi- public or private spaces, to structure a mega-building development. Around them, varied activities (living, working, leisure, retail) are articulated. The sequence from courtyard to courtyard reintroduces spatial hierarchy between private and public life for Koreans. Being ‘’underground’’ (i.e. no natural light), these courtyards redefine the platform as a solely commercial domain. Whether ‘’underground’’ or ‘’aboveground’’, artificially or naturally conditioned, fake or real, public or private, interior gardens question the inhabitability of the thick ground of a densely populated metropolis.
Project Seoul
The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design
Instructor: Diederik de Koning
Local Expert: Seungbom Roh
Project Documentary: https://vimeo.com/155961395
SUPER-SUPERBLOCK
Seoul has achieved and grown an incredible amount since Independence and the Korean War. It has established itself as a truly global power with densely developed transportation and technological networks, and a vibrant culture operating 24 hours a day. It caught up, it is the competition. The subsequent need for density is met by the superblock development model without question. As an urban type for Seoul, the superblock should foster the city’s multiple spatial hierarchies and therefore stakeholders, while still managing to achieve high densities. The typical Seoul superblock is developed through a multi-programmatic mega-structure.
Our project is a counter-proposal to the typical Superblock model by proposing layered platforms (multi-level grounds) that distribute varied real estate values throughout the mega-structure both vertically and horizontally.
This strategy is particularly relevant for the test site of Yongsan Station. It is the largest fragment of Seoul left for redevelopment and is therefore highly valuable land. If a new megastructure for Yongsan can bridge the legacy of Seoul’s major urban structures, namely the winding laneways, courtyards, linear arteries and superblocks, then it has the potential to both stabilize and catalyze a more integrated development with a boundary than can change over time.
By developing an internal logic driven by spaces of access and connection, the streets, courtyards, and vertical circulation, an alternative to the developer’s programmatically driven model is proposed which integrates diverse spatial hierarchies. Clustered together these spaces of connection break the superblock down into smaller, identifiable urban blocks, which can be independently designed fragments within the larger whole. In order to organise and control the relationship between programs but not the program itself, a unifying structural grid becomes an urban design tool which ties the architectural structure and the mega-structure together. A simple grid based on modules of 3,0 meters allows for variations within the system, including the smallest scale of business, apartment, or bang which is characteristic of Seoul. This is therefore neither a single building, nor an assembly of buildings. This is a piece of city.
Project Seoul
The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design
Team: Nafsika Efklidou (GR), Anastasiia Gerasimova (RU), Claire Lubell (CA)
Instructor: Diederik de Koning
Local Expert: Seungbom Roh