Hasta La Ideas

Our second project this week from South Korean studio Mass Studies is a series of cafe and exhibition pavilions scattered across the rocky grounds of a museum at the Seogwang Dawon tea plantation on Jeju Island (+ slideshow).

Mass Studies designed the trio of new buildings for the O’Sulloc Tea Museum, an exhibition centre dedicated to the history of Korea’s traditional tea culture, and dotted them along a pathway winding between the main building and the surrounding green tea fields.

Unlike the circular form of the museum, the three pavilions were all designed as rectilinear volumes with similar sizes and proportions. Two are positioned on either side of a gotjawal – the Korean term for woodland on rocky ground – so that they face one another through the trees.

The first pavilion, named Tea Stone, is a two-storey concrete building that accommodates new exhibition spaces and a classroom where visitors can watch and participate in tea ceremonies.

Positioned close to the existing museum, the building has a polished dark concrete exterior that the architects compare to “a black ink-stone”.

“The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously,” they said.

Large expanses of glazing create floor-to-ceiling windows at both ends of the building, meaning anyone within the tea classroom can look out onto a still pool of water.

A shop and cafe building is the next structure revealed to visitors as they make their way across the grounds. Named Innisfree, the structure is glazed on all four sides to create views through to the tea fields beyond.

“Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot,” said the architects.

Timber panels clad the upper sections of the walls, but were left unmilled on one side to give a rough texture to the pavilion’s facade.

Wooden ceiling rafters are exposed inside both Innisfree and Tea Stone, and help to support the saw-toothed roofs of the two buildings.

The last of the three pavilions is an annex containing staff areas, storage facilities and toilets. The walls of this building are made from stone, allowing it to camouflage against its surroundings.

Photography is by Yong-Kwan Kim.

Here’s a project description from Mass Studies:

Osulloc

Context

The scenic landscape of Seogwang Dawon, its main attraction being the tea farm, is located in Jeju Island, at a mid-mountain level, in a gotjawal (traditionally, Jeju locals call any forest on rocky ground “gotjawal”, but according to the Jeju Dialect Dictionary, “gotjawal” refers to an unmanned and unapproachable forest mixed with trees and bushes). The Osulloc Tea Museum, Tea Stone, Innisfree, and the Innisfree Annex are located at the northwestern side of the Seogwang Dawon tea fields, with the gotjawal to the north, and facing the green tea fields to the south.

The area is currently in the middle of a large scale development, where to the southeast the Shinhwa Historic Park is being developed, and to the southwest, the English Education City. The Aerospace Museum is immediately adjacent to the site to the northwest, and because of such surrounding developments, the road at the front of the site has been expanded into the 30m wide, Shinhwa Historic Road.

As for the walking tour course, the Jeju Olle-gil 14-1 course and the Jeoji-Mureung Olle approach the site from the green tea field on the other side of the road and leads to the northwestern side of the Osulloc Tea Museum, after passing through the front of Innisfree, across Tea Stone, and arrives at the 8km long ‘Path of Karma (Inyeoneui-gil)’, which starts from the Chusa-gwan (Hall) of Daejeong-Eub among ‘Chusa Exile Path (Yubae-Gil)’, and arrives at the Osulloc Tea Museum.

Tea Stone

Tea Stone, planned to accommodate additional functions, is immediately adjacent to the Osulloc Tea Museum, and is a simple box, extending 20.3 x 11m on the slope of a hill.

The main structure of this building, which connects to the Chusa Exile Path, a Jeju Olle trail, resembling a black ink-stone, is a polished black concrete mass. The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously.

From the rear exit of the Tea Museum, a 1m wide basalt path crosses a dry creek and connects to the basement level of the Tea Stone, into a dark space, where one can experience and learn about fermented teas. A narrow staircase leads up into a triangular space, the Chusa Exhibition Gallery, on the first floor. The Chusa Exhibition space acts as the front room of the tea classroom. It faces the Tea Museum to the west, and has a dark glass exterior façade, making visible the landscape outside, yet able to contain the soft interior lighting.

As one passes through this space and enters the tea classroom, where workshops and lectures take place, the preserved gotjawal forest is revealed through the glass facade. From the tea class space, the concrete walls of the Chusa Exhibition space act as pillars that support 10m long cantilevered concrete beams that form and shape the perimeter of the roof structure. Wooden rafters sit in a single direction within the structure of the concrete roof support, and makes up a saw-tooth type ceiling on the entire roof. This wooden ceiling provides a warm environment, and at the same time, allows for a soft reflection of natural light. The structure, without other support, allows for the tea classroom to have three glass sides, and it maximises the feeling of openness as continued out to the gotjawal forest. The fireplace to the north also adds warmness to the space.

Two sides of the tea classroom, the north and south, used a dark glass, and a clear transparent glass for the east window toward the Innisfree building located across the gotjawal. With a 42m wide gotjawal in between, the two buildings face each other, creating a silent tension and as well as directionality to ones gaze.

A shallow, polished black concrete pool sits adjacent to the glass window, reflecting the building and the forest, heightening an aura of tranquil stillness for the tea classroom.

Innisfree

Innisfree is located on the highest point of the hill, and is a rectangular building, with the same width as that of the Tea Stone. The two building face each other in axis with the gotjawal in-between.

Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and in designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot. The materials used for the interior finishes come from the surround natural environment, such as wood and basalt, so that the 34.8 x 11m store and café space functions as one with nature.

A wall made out of cut stone, flush flat on one side, sits at the entrance. Through the glass doors, one enters the Innisfree shop, and to the right is the café, and through the transparent, frameless glass window, one can take in a panorama of the landscape of the surrounding tea fields to the east.

A 3.5m wide deck along the front of the café, as well as the folding doors between the café and deck makes it possible to have all sides ‘open’, making it possible to eat, drink, and relax in nature.

A 6.3 x 5.3m basalt stone volume attached to the north side of the building includes a preparation room on the first floor, and stairs that lead down to the underground kitchen and mechanical rooms, etc., all to supplement the main café space.

Similar to the Tea Stone, the wooden rafters, in a saw-tooth type ceiling throughout the entire roof of Innisfree provides a warm atmosphere and soft natural light.

Along the upper portion of the southern façade is an awning made out of roughly cut shingles, blocking direct sunlight. The north, east, and west sides are finished with milled shingles. All four shingled surfaces will weather together, naturally, as time passes.

Innisfree Annex

The Annex Building holds facilities such as a warehouse and a bakery, etc. and was designed to be seen not as a building, but rather the backdrop to Innisfree. The exterior wall facing the green tea fields utilises a stone fence, a material that that comes from the existing land, and is to be seen as a continuation of an element of the surrounding landscape (Jeju Island is known for the scenic stone fences that mark property, paths, and undulate with its natural terrain).

The land is raised about 1.5m to reduce the 3.5m high stone fence (exterior wall) to mimic the natural topography. Three courtyard gardens are placed inside and outside of the Annex Building, and by planting tall trees, it minimises the presence of the building when viewed from outside. The end of the building closest to Innisfree is the public bathroom, and from there, in sequence are the bakery, the employees’ dining hall, and the warehouse. To the rear of the stone fence, which sits symmetrically to the external wall of the bathroom, is the access and loading space for service vehicles.

Osulloc Extension

Providing more seating in the café, the extension was designed to minimise changes to the existing form and space, with a 3m-wide addition, following the curvature of the café space toward the north.

The interior extension utilises the existing curved windows, with the new exterior curve offset at a 3m distance, and was designed so that the extension is in harmony with the language of the existing building. Following this café extension, the length of the kitchen was expanded in the same direction, while the added cafe space is separate from the main circulation to allow for a space more quiet and calm. The new extension is faced with folding doors, and the entire space achieves a continuous flow to the landscape to the north, in fact becoming part of the outdoor space.

Osulloc: Tea Stone, Innisfree, Innisfree Annex
Design Period: 2011.06 – 2012.04
Construction Period: 2012.04-2012.12
Type: Commercial, Cultural
Location: Jeju, Korea

Architects: Mass Studies
Structural Engineer: TEO Structure
MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers
Facade Consultant: FRONT Inc.
Lighting Engineer: Newlite
Landscape design: Seo Ahn Landscaping
Construction: Daerim Construction
Client: Amore Pacific

The post Mass Studies adds three pavilions
to Korean tea museum appeared first on Dezeen.

This ridged steel art gallery by South Korean studio Mass Studies has half of its floors buried underground while others balance on a pair of triangular piloti (+ slideshow).

The Songwon Art Space is located in Buk-Chon, a suburban district filled with traditional Korean Han-Ok houses, and the building is squeezed onto a steeply inclining site between two roads.

Mass Studies faced restrictions on the size of the new building and had no choice but to place some spaces below ground to maintain sight lines towards a neighbouring historic residence. “We neither wanted this project to become a compromise to the restrictions nor a mere negotiation between the contextual obligations,” explained the architects.

In response, they planned restaurant and event spaces on the two upper floors, while two exhibition floors occupy the basement and a car parking level is slotted in between.

“We had to come up with a structural scheme that simultaneously lets us fit everything within the relatively small site and also lifts the building up,” said the architects. “This composition allows the building to be seen as performing a ‘silent acrobatic act,’ slightly floating above ground while still staying close to it.”

When approaching the building, visitors are faced with two large windows. A length of curved glazing offers a view into the restaurant while a triangular aperture faces down towards the entrance of the exhibition spaces. The architects describe this as a “sudden unexpected moment of vertigo” where “the entire height of the building suddenly presents itself”.

A sloping roof angles up to follow the incline of the hill and features a large skylight to brings natural light into the upper floors. Louvres across the ceiling moderate this light, while voids in the floor plates help it to filter through the building.

Louvres also crop up on the exhibition levels, where they allow curators to adjust artificial lighting.

A surface of steel wraps the facade and is made of hundreds of vertical strips.

Seoul-based Mass Studies is headed up by architect Minsuk Cho. Past projects include the Xi Gallery in Pusan and the recently completed headquarters for internet company Daum.

See more architecture in South Korea »

Photography is by Kyungsub Shin.

Here’s some more information from Mass Studies:

Songwon Art Space

Buk-Chon, where Songwon Art Space is located, is one of the few areas that were less affected by the heavy wave of development that has been sweeping through Korea since the fifties. The townscape is based on an irregular network of streets that weave through the area, where Han-Ok is the dominating architectural typology.

During the past 10 years Buk-Chon has seen lots of buzz primarily caused by the newfound interest of the public on the traditional townscapes. Han-Oks (traditional Korean houses) have become a subject of admiration again, and many commercial/cultural businesses have been brought into the area to take advantage of this setup. In this social context, it is consensual that any new development in the area intrinsically faces the challenge to simultaneously conserve existing values, and contribute in a new way to what already is.

Not surprisingly, with our project we faced numerous restrictions and conditions that were inherent to the site. The design development process took an unusual amount of time – as we neither wanted this project to become a compromise to the restrictions nor a mere negotiation between the contextual obligations. The design is a result of optimizing the parameters, sensitively reacting to the surrounding and simultaneously developing a rigorous logic.

A Pre-determined Shape

The site is an irregularly shaped piece of land, roughly 297 sqm in size, sitting in an entrance location to the Buk-Chon area when approached from the city center. The two adjacent roads meet in a sharp angle, with the main street sloping up towards the site. These situations give this small plot an unusually strong recognizability.

The massing of the building is largely limited by two conditions – the shape of the plot determined the plan of the building, and the adjacently located House of Yoon-Bo-Sun, a cultural heritage site, determined the elevation of the building to be cut in an angle in relations to sightline conservation. The volume trapped in these restrictive borders could only contain roughly two thirds of the maximum buildable floor area above ground (90% out of max. allowed 150% FAR). Therefore, much of the exhibition program had to be located below ground-level.

The resulting building is three floors below ground level and two floors above. The bottom two floors are used as an exhibition space, the semi-underground B1 level as parking, and the top two floors house a commercial restaurant and other social functions.

Structure – Silent Acrobat

Another condition with the site was the parking requirement – 7 spots needed to be provided within the plot area. The only way to suffice this condition was to designate a semi-underground level that is made accessible from ground level through the use of a piloti scheme. We had to come up with a structural scheme that simultaneously lets us fit everything within the relatively small site and also lift the building up. By making the piloti structure out of two triangular walls, forming half a pyramid, we were able to also house the entrance and staircase leading into the main space below ground within the structural element.

With the exception of the sloping roof, the aboveground mass is generally represented in a set of strictly horizontal or vertical concrete planes, forming a hard shell-like unibody structure. The Mass is then balanced on the aforementioned ‘half pyramid’ on one side, and a leaning column on the other. This composition allows the building to be seen as performing a ‘silent acrobatic act,’ slightly floating above ground – while still staying close to it.

Vertigo Moment, Two Windows at the Corner

In section, the building can be seen as two programs separated by the parking area – the social function of the restaurant above, and exhibition spaces below. As the sharp corner of the site is approached by pedestrians, one encounters two acrylic windows each revealing one of these two spaces – a curved, seamless window to the top, revealing the 7-11m high space to the above, and a triangular window within the base of the pyramid reveals the 8m space below, resulting in a sudden unexpected moment of vertigo as the entire height of the building (some 19 meters) suddenly presents itself.

Two kinds of Light Conditions

The two main volumes differ in the way they deal with lighting conditions. The underground volume needs to provide varying lighting conditions depending on the requirements of the exhibitions it houses – thus flexibility is essential, and the system relies heavily on artificial lighting. The exception is made in the entrance to the exhibition space, where the previously mentioned triangular skylight dramatizes the entry sequence by providing natural light into the vertical space. One may think of a skylight as an object that is looked at from below, but in this case the triangular window greets the visitors as an opening in the ground and then later changes its identity into a skylight as we descend into the gallery. We think of this as an adequate, surprising way to begin the gallery experience.

The walls of the social/ restaurant space above ground are mostly solid – with the somewhat limited exceptions of a few slits and small windows that were devised to provide ventilation and some amount of view towards the outside. The main source of lighting here is the skylight that takes up a large portion of the sloped roof – a response to the cultural heritage regulation from an adjacent building. The ceiling is composed of 3 layers of steel components – skylight frame, structure and louvers – each of these layers are oriented differently for a diffused lighting effect. The skylight itself is made of triple glazed panes with an embedded layer of expanded steel mesh which aids the process of primary sunlight filtering.

The steel louver system is applied to the ceilings of both the restaurant and exhibition spaces, albeit for different purposes. If the roof louvers were installed to control the daylight, the basement ceiling louvers were to add flexibility to the artificial lighting system. This gesture of using the same louver system in different ways was also to have the two spaces create a visual coherency.

The exhibition space has a polished concrete floor and white walls, whereas the more social restaurant space keeps the naturally exposed white concrete as its finished surface. The two spaces share a somewhat understated material and color scheme, but vary subtly according to the functions of the spaces.

Silent, but Unfamiliar Pleated Wall

It was suggested by the client that we use a material manufactured by a specific steel manufacturer – who is also an important supporter of Songwon Culture Foundation. This particular steel company has the technology to roll paint various colors and patterns onto rolled galvanized steel sheets. These products are commonly used as a reasonably priced exterior finishes, normally in a panel format.

With the help of the metal company we were able to apply a customized finish that resembles concrete or perhaps weathered zinc, in somewhat of a distressed tone. This finish was applied through the roll printing process and then these coloured Galvanized sheets were folded and cut into V shaped channels of 5 different widths – ranging from 3 to 7cm in 1cm increments. These channels wrap the exterior of the building forming a row of full height vertical strips, in a randomized array of the five different widths. Absent of horizontal breaks, this exterior finish gives an illusion of being casted in a single piece, rather than being an assembly of several smaller pieces. The intention was to have the building perceived as an ambiguous monolithic mass.

The resulting pleated texture, combined with the varying boundary conditions of the building plan – having straight and rounded portions – reacts with the natural lighting conditions in an unpredictable way and obscures the materiality and construction of the exterior. Here the building becomes ‘silent but unfamiliar.’

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

Above: top floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: upper ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: lower ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: upper basement floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: lower basement floor plan – click above for larger image

Above: section one

Above: section two

The post Songwon Art Space
by Mass Studies appeared first on Dezeen.

Architectural photographer Roland Halbe has sent us his photos of the Republic of Korea Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 by Mass Studies. (more…)