Hasta La Ideas

South Korean firm Mass Studies has developed a system of five pre-cast concrete modules for building South Korea’s answer to California’s Silicon Valley, starting with this flexible headquarters building for internet company Daum (+ slideshow).

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Named Daum Space, the five-storey office building is the first completed building on a previously undeveloped site on the island of Jeju, where the company have chosen to relocate. The architects describe this as a “rebellious attempt to move away from the urban setting” of South Korea’s cities and form a creative community “comparable to Silicon Valley”.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Mass Studies has prepared a masterplan for the whole 800-metre-long development site, showing ten buildings lined up alongside a stretch of designated rural zones.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

The 350-person Daum Space is positioned in the central section and demonstrates the construction system envisioned for each building in the complex.

“We thought of a way to create a system of structure that could potentially serve as the grammar for the entire territory,” explain architects Minsuk Cho and Kisu Park. “With these basic formal structures we were able to form various forms of vaulted or cantilevered spaces within large open planes, while also providing a way for the entire campus to grow organically to meet the unpredictable needs of the future.”

The 8.4-metre-wide concrete modules appear in five variations and can be used to create column-free spaces with spans of over 12 metres, as well as cantilevered canopies up to 6 metres deep.

The building is open on all four sides at ground floor level, revealing a series of social areas that include a cafe, an events space, a lounge and a games room.

Open-plan offices cover the double-height first floor, which is overlooked from above by a mezzanine library.

An auditorium is also located on the first floor, while smaller offices and meeting rooms can be found on the third and fourth storeys.

Joints between the concrete modules also create small enclosed spaces at each level, where the architects have located bathrooms, staircases and elevators.

Other projects we’ve featured by Mass Studies include a shop with green walls and a glazed exhibition centre. See more projects by Mass Studies.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Photography is by Kyungsub Shin, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s some more text from Mass Studies:

Context

Daum is an international IT firm based in Korea, primarily known for its web portal services. Unlike its competitors that are typically located in metropolitan areas, Daum has been planning to relocate its operation to an undeveloped site within Jeju Province (an autonomous island situated off of the southern coast of Korea) for the past 8 years.

Largely known as a major tourism hub, Jeju Province has been encouraging the implementation of other industries in the recent years, one of which is the development of the island’s technology-based industrial complex.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Considering the fact that the urban population of Korea has grown from 20% to over 80% in the last 50 years – which makes Korea one of the most urbanized countries in the world – Daum’s radical step of exiling themselves to the rural Jeju Province can be framed as a utopian gesture, comparable to Silicon Valley of the late 70’s in America, as a rebellious attempt to move away from the urban setting to reinvent an independent, creative work community.

Another dilemma that urban workplaces face in the 21st century is that while the nature of the working organization is becoming more horizontal, the spaces are becoming vertical. Therefore, the generous conditions provided by Jeju Province counters this problem as an opportunity to imagine a new type of spatial organization to match Daum’s creative, horizontal working organization.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Masterplan

Over the course of the next decade, Daum plans to gradually relocate its operations. For the development of the IT complex, Jeju Province has designated a vast, undeveloped land of 1,095,900 square meters on the island’s northern mountainside, in close proximity to Jeju University. Daum’s site, 300m wide and 800m long at its maximum, is the largest central plot within the development area, measuring 132,000 square meters and parallel to the main road in its longitudinal direction.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Given this scale, one can imagine Daum’s complex built progressively over time, a masterplan growing organically across the site’s green terrain. As a counteraction to the typical office park development – a homogeneous field of low-rise, non-contextual office blocks floating in a sea of parking lots – Daum’s masterplan is designed as a linear growth, dividing the site into opposing rural vs. urban zones and informal vs. formal zones. The urban zone will be defined by a dense, low rise, 70m wide and 800m long superstructure. This proposal allows functions to be optimized, supporting an efficient urban work zone – an “information superhighway,” symbolically as well as literally – and a vast area of park-like space dotted with facilities that will house community activities such as farming, sports, etc. Each of the buildings in the urban zone, no more than 5 floors high, are situated a floor level above the previous to accommodate the site’s gradual 60m rise, taking advantage of this gentle, uniform slope to connect the facilities at different levels. This progressive alignment promotes movement across the site vertically, horizontally and diagonally, effectively increasing the efficiency and unity of the masterplan.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

Daum Space: Formal Structure

During the design process, we thought of a way to create a system of structure that could potentially serve as the grammar for the entire territory. To formalize this notion, we designed five elementary structural modules of 8.4m by 8.4m with variations of extrusional or rotational attributes, to either extend or to end the structure as necessary. As a combination of these modules, the structure expands horizontally and vertically.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

With these basic “formal structures,” we were able to form various forms of vaulted, or cantilevered spaces within large open planes, while also providing a way for the entire campus to grow organically to meet the unpredictable needs of the future.

As a result, large spaces of 12.6m spans or 6.3m cantilevers are supported by vertical piers with small 3.8m spaces within them, creating a field of spaces of various degrees of size and enclosure.

Above: photograph is by Yong-Kwan Kim

As the first building within the masterplan, Daum Space is located near the center of the site, to provide the office space for the first 350 employees as well as other subsidiary functions.

As a combination of these modules, we were able to design the Main Center as a five-storey building that is open on all four sides, allowing the scenic views – a nearby forest to the west, Halla Mountain to the south, and the ocean to the north – to penetrate into the interior, creating a favorable working environment.

The ground floor serves the various shared / public functions. The cafeteria, an open lounge, a café, a small pavilion for Daum’s public relations purposes, a game room, a gym, and meeting rooms are located here, as well as an auditorium that is isolated from the work space.

The inclined site meets the entrance road on the southern end of the 2nd floor, where one enters the auditorium. The main entrance to the building is located further into the site, with an outdoor space separating the two entrances. The 2nd floor is provided with a double floor ceiling height and the largest open plan work space, composed of the reception area, office spaces, and a block of conference rooms with a library above it as the 3rd floor.

As one progress upward to the 4th and 5th floors, the floor areas become smaller, allowing for more isolated, intimate office spaces, project rooms and conference rooms, together with outdoor terraces (of either wooden decks or grass).

Module shapes – click above for larger image

Inside the piers, which act as the vertical structural elements on all floors, are round or rounded rectangular spaces for various core services, HVAC, stairs, elevators, as well as programs such as smaller meeting rooms, restrooms, and lactation rooms.

Concept diagram – click above for larger image

As a result, Daum Space has systematic rigor, but by creating an array of spaces of various scales and qualities, it feels like a village without being picturesque, as a vertical/horizontal field of spatial experiences which anticipates further growth in the near future.

Basement plan – click above for larger image

Name and site of the project: Daum Campus Masterplan & Daum Space
Architects: Mass Studies – Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park
Design team: Mass Studies – Hyunjung Kim, Jisoo Kim, Sungpil Won, Nikolas Urano, Sebastien Soan, Junghye Bae, Jangwon Choi, Kwonwoong Lim, Youngjoon Chung, Bhujon Kang, Zongxoo U, Taehoon Hwang, Sangkyu Jeon, Younkyoung Shin, Vin kim, Daeun Jeong, Yuseok Heo, Kyungmok Park, Wonbang Kim, Jieun Lee, Sanghoon Lee, Songmin Lee

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Structural engineering: TEO Structure
MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers
Lighting Engineer: Newlite
Landscape design: Soltos Landscaping

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Client: DAUM Communications
Construction: Hyundai Development Company
Construction Manager: Hanmi Global Co.

Second floor plan – click above for larger image

Location: Jeju Province, Korea
Site Area: 1,095,000 m2 (masterplan) / 48,383 m2 (daum space)
Site Coverage Area: 3,720.38 m2
Total Floor Area: 9,184.16 m2 (including basement floor)

Third floor plan – click above for larger image

Building-to-Land Ratio: 7.69%
Floor Area Ratio: 15.90%
Building Scope: B1F + 5F

Fourth floor plan – click above for larger image

Structure: RC
Finish: Exposed Color Concrete, Wood Deck, Vertical & Roof garden
Cost: 13,510,000EUR (20,000,000,000 KRW)

Roof plan – click above for larger image

Design phase (beginning and ending month, year): 2008.4 – 2010.6
Construction phase (beginning and ending month, year): 2010.7– 2011.11

Section A – click above for larger image

Section B – click above for larger image

Section C – click above for larger image

Section D – click above for larger image

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Mass Studies appeared first on Dezeen.

News: experimental architect and artist Lebbeus Woods has died at the age of 72.

Woods was long admired by students and academics for his fantastical drawings imagining deconstructed buildings and dystopian landscapes that relate as closely to science fiction as to architecture, including one series that shows a “defensive wall” designed to protect Bosnia from invaders by absorbing them like a sponge (pictured).

Woods trained as an architect at the University of Illinois and worked under Eero Saarinen, before leaving practice to focus on theory and experimentation. He also co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, where he developed a number of conceptual projects aimed at finding architectural answers to contemporary world problems.

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1940-2012 appeared first on Dezeen.

A louvred wooden X-shape filled with staircases connects the two laboratory wings of this scientific research centre by architects Lyons at the Australian National University in Canberra (+ slideshow).

Located on the university’s Acton campus, the building brings together two existing biological research schools into a single facility with hexagonal windows and splashes of bright green on its facade.

“Both of the existing schools had very successful research and teaching programmes and the challenge was to bring those programmes together in the one building, maintaining their separate identities while forming a new entity,” said architect Carey Lyons. “The building’s two wings provide the separate identities, while the cross-stair with its meeting rooms binds them together.”

The wonky cross stretches across the west facade of the U-shaped building, creating two overlapping staircases that screen collaborative working areas and meeting spaces.

In the two wings, laboratories are arranged in rows and filled with modular furniture and equipment, allowing them to be easily reorganised.

Offices are positioned opposite the laboratories and each floor has two rows of windows; one row at desk height and a second row at ceiling level.

Lyons has worked on a number of educational and research buildings, including an institute of technology, a medical school and a college administration building.

See more architecture by Lyons or more projects in Australia.

Photography is by Dianna Snape.

Here’s a project description from Lyons:

Biosciences Research Building
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Constructing Collaboration

The primary idea for this Bioscience Research building is to join together the super-performative needs of a contemporary laboratory research building, with a conceptual expression of collaboration.

The site for the building is at the centre of the Australian National University, a research focused campus located within Australia’s capital city Canberra. The purpose of the building is to bring together two previous disparate research schools into a single integrated and collaborative environment.

The two laboratory wings are joined together by a broad scissor or ‘X’ stair, which also forms the primary approach and address to the building. This X stair functionally connects the schools together across the three levels of the building, and is also an expressive architectural figure of collaboration and connectivity. The form of the stair is also derived from design operations on the X chromosome, which is a key focus for the research disciplines working within the building.

Internally the X stair, through a series of spatial inflections, creates social and collaborative space within its figure. At its lower levels it contains spaces for collaboration between staff and research students, at the centre of the X is located a tea room and informal seating, and at the top of the stairs is located spaces for collaborative work between researchers. The stair figure is clad in timber shading devices, which ameliorate the late afternoon sun.

The two laboratory wings contain a series of high performance and flexible laboratory environments which can be readily adapted to meet rapidly changing research needs.

All laboratory furniture and equipment is both modular and ‘loose fit’ allowing scientists to adapt their laboratories to suit their current activities. Offices and work areas for researchers are located immediately adjacent to the laboratories within high ceiling spaces that operate as either air conditioned or fully naturally ventilated spaces depending on the external environmental conditions.

The researcher spaces are contained within a building envelope constructed out of a modular precast concrete system, based on the idea of a cellular structure. This system creates a ‘field’ of windows both externally and internally, with the interior having two windows per level – one at desk height for views, and one at a higher level for bringing natural light deeply into the work area.

The plan figure of the building has been developed within the context of an overall precinct masterplan, with a number of other buildings currently under construction. The diagonal geometry of the plan articulates a key pedestrian route through the centre of the campus, and also creates a courtyard space within the building form that inflects outwards towards the campus. At the end of the courtyard is another expressed staircase, interconnecting each of the bio-containment laboratory levels.

Site plan – click above for larger image

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

First floor plan – click above for larger image

West elevation – click above for larger image

North elevation – click above for larger image

East elevation – click above for larger image

South elevation – click above for larger image

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by Lyons appeared first on Dezeen.

Part of this wooden house in Japan by mA-style architects is lifted off the ground and curved like the hull of a boat (+ slideshow).

Glass screens on opposite sides of the living room separate the level floor surface from the curved outer edges, creating balconies that double up as sun loungers.

Positioned at the building’s centre, the room is sandwiched between a pair of narrow two-storey wings that contain the other rooms of the two-bedroom family home.

A kitchen and dining room are located in the east wing, where a ridged wooden ceiling arches up around the edges of the children’s bedroom above.

The master bedroom and bathroom occupy the two floors of the opposite wing, which is only just wide enough to fit a double bed inside.

Entrances to the house are positioned on both sides of this wing and lead in through a concealed porch.

This year mA-style architects also completed a metal-clad house with a smaller wooden house inside.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen, including a residence with sunken rooms and curved balconies and a house shaped like an arrow.

See more projects in Japan »

Photography is by Kai Nakamura.

Here’s a few project details from mA-style architects:

Project name: Mascara House
Location: Shizuoka, Hamamatsu-City, Japan

Program: Single family house

Site Area: 232.02 sq m

Building Area: 82.46 sq m

Gross Floor Area: 111.44 sq m

Year: Completion: May 2011

Project by: mA-style architects

Principal Designers: Atsushi Kawamoto, Mayumi Kawamoto

Ground floor plan

First floor plan

Section – click above for larger image

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mA-style architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Dozens of square windows puncture the corrugated steel shell of this barn-like Buddhist meditation centre in a rural part of the Netherlands by Dutch architects Bureau SLA (+ slideshow).

The Buddhist organisation Metta Vihara asked the architects to create as much space as possible within the modest budget.

“What we wanted was an aesthetic that was beautiful but not too comfortable,” architect Peter van Assche told Dezeen. “The reason people go to the meditation centre is not to feel cosy – they want to go deeper, to sense something that is not too obvious. The feeling of the building should express this.”

The resulting building provides beds for 26 people in 13 bedrooms as well as a meditation hall, library and dining hall.

A mansard roof was chosen as a cost-effective way of providing extra living space while also borrowing from the vernacular architecture of Zeeland, which is near the Belgian border.

Three colours of corrugated steel have been used for the facades and roof, with red cedar beams marking the top and bottom edges of each steel sheet.

The square Velux windows have been fitted inside white wooden frames to disguise ugly joints with the steel.

The end walls are clad in wood salvaged from scaffolding left over by the builders.

At one end of the building is a large meditation room with glazed walls and corrugated steel shutters, which open out onto a view of the rural landscape.

Inside, bare limestone has been used for the load-bearing walls while the other walls are made from environmentally certified MDF.

Polished concrete has been used on all the floors with the exception of the meditation hall, which is covered with black bamboo.

The architects added: “The building has been warmly received by local residents, as evident in a conversation we heard between two passing cyclists: ‘This new cowshed looks really good, but why does it have so many windows?’”

We’ve featured two other Buddhist buildings on Dezeen – a house for a priest along the Shikoku pilgrimage route in Japan and a priest’s quarters in the Japanese Alps.

Site plan – click above for larger image

We previously published Bureau SLA’s National Glass Museum Holland in Leerdam, which saw two houses connected by four overlapping bridges wrapped in aluminium mesh.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

See all our stories from the Netherlands »
See all our stories about Bureau SLA »
See all our stories about places of worship »

First floor plan – click above for larger image

Photographs are by Jeroen Musch.

Here’s some further information from the architects:

The Buddhist Meditation Centre Metta Vihara is located in Hengstdijk – a small village near the Belgian border – in a remote area of the Netherlands. The inhabitants of Metta Vihara (defined as ‘community of loving kindness’ in the Pali language) are members of the Triratna Community, a Buddhist movement not aligned to one traditional school, but one that draws on the whole stream of Buddhist inspiration.

Long section – click above for larger image

The new accommodation provides 26 beds in 13 one- and two-person bedrooms, a meditation hall, library and dining hall. Form and materials used in the centre relate to the rural vernacular building, but used in a new and fresh way.

As the centre is financed mainly by gifts from community members and friends, one of the design briefs was to maximise the the space while minimising the cost. Our overall design concept was to design a building that, while beautiful, wasn’t overly comforting. This is in line with the philosophy that, while on retreat, one should feel relaxed but not necessarily ‘at home’. As a result, Metta Vihara has strong aesthetics that feature robust and raw materials.

Long section – click above for larger image

The overall form of the meditation centre is an interpretation of the so-called Mansard roof, also known as the French roof. Used throughout the area (mainly because of its low cost), the Mansard roof is found widely on houses and barns. The facade of the centre – along with the cladding of the roof – is made of corrugated steel, a material popular for its low cost, strength, and long life. Typically, the drawback of using corrugated steel is in the ungraceful way it joins with other materials, specifically at the corners and in the overlays. At Metta Vihara, however, it has been used ‘as is’: no joints and no connections. Western red cedar beams and white wood window frames mark the transitions from one steel sheet to the next, with the horizontal lines of the beams giving the building depth and profile. Three different colors of steel are used, and in three different wavelengths. Indeed at first sight, it is not at all clear what the scale of the building is: does it have five floors? Three? Two?

Cross section A

The same approach of using raw materials in this new way is also used in the design of the windows. The windows in the steel skin – in facade and roof – are standard Velux windows, which are technically superb and relatively inexpensive. As with the corrugated steel, however, there is often an aesthetic compromise in the joints with other materials. In the case of Metta Vihara, though, they are framed with white painted wood, giving them a distinctive look.

Cross section B

As a contrast to the more industrial looks of the steel, the short sides of the building and the terrace walls are cladded with wood, a robust but also warm material. For this, wood already available on site was used: the leftovers of the scaffolding wood used by the builders. The structure’s interior consists of unfinished building materials, albeit used in a considerate – even delicate – way.

Structural walls are bare unplastered lime stone. Floors are raw concrete, polished and uncovered, with the exception of the meditation hall, which features black bamboo flooring. Non-loadbearing walls are made of ecologically manufactured MDF sheets and are coated with transparent colours, in order that the structure of the material remains visible.

Cross section C

In the meditation hall, doors open to the outside, allowing open air meditation. When closed, these doors – made of perforated corrugated steel – serve to filter the sunlight. This gives the space an intimate atmosphere, providing optimal conditions for meditation. The building has been warmly received by local residents, as evident in a conversation we heard between two passing cyclists: “This new cowshed looks really good, but why does it have so many windows?” The Metta Vihara building is the first newly built meditation centre in the Netherlands.

Cross section D

Project: Buddhist Meditation Centre Metta Vihara
Start design: 2009
Start building: 9/2011
Opening: 6/2012
Gross Area: 465 m2
Building costs: ca. €650,000 ex. VAT
Design: bureau SLA
Client: Metta Vihara
Address: Hengstdijkse Kerkstraat 36, Hengstdijk, The Netherlands
Program: 13 bedrooms, meditation hall, library and dining hall
Contractor: Van Kerckhoven Bouw, Kloosterzande
Structural Engineer: Sineth Engineering, Schiphol
Sustainability: Sunraytec, Woerden
Project team: Peter van Assche, Hiske van der Meer, Gonçalo Moreira, Charlotte Vermaning, Justyna Osiecka

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by Bureau SLA appeared first on Dezeen.