Hasta La Ideas

Architects Coop Himmelb(l)au have completed a film and theatre centre in South Korea with a steel and glass cantilever that’s wider than the wings of an Airbus A380 (+ slideshow).

As the home to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the Busan Cinema Centre sandwiches a 4000-seat outdoor cinema between the two halves of the building, while the column-free roof measures 85 metres from end to end.

“Once we build architecture like aircraft wings we will no longer need columns,” Coop Himmelb(l)au Principal Wolf D.Prix told Dezeen. ”The cantilevered part of the roof with its 85 meters is twice as long as one wing of the Airbus 380.”

LED lights glow from behind the canopy’s glass underside, creating a rainbow of colours over the heads of visitors and guests arriving across the public square at the front of the complex.

A funnel-like structure punctures the roof on one side, while a ramp spirals around it to create a red carpet route into the reception hall in the south-eastern block.

A triangulated metal lattice clads this column, concealing a cafe at ground floor level and a staircase leading to a bar and restaurant above.

An indoor cinema and theatre are contained within the north-western block and are stacked on top of one another.

“The basic concept of this project was the discourse about the overlapping of open and closed spaces and of public and private areas,” said Prix. ”While the movie theatres are located in a mountain-like building, the centre’s public space is shared between an outdoor cinema and a huge reception area.”

Prix recently caused a stir by launching an attack on this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, claiming it’s “no longer about lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture.”

See all our stories about Coop Himmelb(l)au » 

Photography is by Duccio Malagamba.

Here’s a project description from Coop Himmelb(l)au:

Busan Cinema Center / Busan International Film Festival, Busan, South Korea (2005 – 2012)

The Busan Cinema Center – A multifunctional urban plaza

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s design for the Busan Cinema Center and home of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) provides a new intersection between public space, cultural programs, entertainment, technology and architecture creating a vibrant landmark within the urban landscape.

LED saturated outdoor roof elements acting as a virtual sky connect building-objects and plaza-zones into a continuous, multifunctional public urban space.

Media, technology, entertainment and leisure are merged in an open-architecture of changeable and tailored event experiences. The result is a responsive and changing space of flows acting as an urban catalyst for cultural exchange and transformation.

Project Description

The concept envisions an urban plaza of overlapping zones including an Urban Valley, a Red Carpet Zone, a Walk of Fame and the BIFF Canal Park. The urban plaza is formed by building and plaza elements sheltered by two large roofs that are enabled with computer programmed LED outdoor ceiling surfaces. The larger of the roofs includes a column-free cantilever of 85 meters over a multifunctional Memorial Court event plaza. The urban zones of the complex are formed by individual and recognizable building objects placed below the outdoor roofs. The building objects contain theater, indoor and outdoor cinemas, convention halls, office spaces, creative studios and dining areas in a mixture of sheltered and linked indoor and outdoor public spaces. The design of these spaces supports flexible, hybrid functionality that can be used both during the annual festival period and day-to-day use without interruption.

The urban zones defined by functional surfaces in plan are further articulated in a sectional dialogue between stone-clad “ground” forms of the Cinema Mountain and BIFF Hill, and the metal and LED clad “sky” elements of the roofs. The materiality of the building objects differentiates the spaces and articulates the architectural concept. Through their shape, placement and materiality, the various parts create a dynamic and informal tension between the ground and the roof.

Architecture and Cinema – the Main Roof

The dynamic LED lighting surface covering the undulating ceilings of the outdoor roof canopies gives the Busan Cinema Center its symbolic and representative iconographic feature. Artistic lighting programs tailored to events of the BIFF or the Municipality of Busan can be created by visual artists and displayed across the ceiling in full motion graphics, creating a lively urban situation at night, but also visible during the day.

Imbedded in the architecture the lighting surfaces serve as a communication platform for the content of the Busan Cinema Center. Light as art, which is at the very nature of cinema, creates a unique and memorable atmosphere for the public urban plaza and architecture of the BCC.

Double Cone, Café and Roof Restaurant

The Double Cone is the symbolic landmark entrance element to the Busan Cinema Center and serves as the connective element between the Cinema Mountain and the BIFF Hill. Designed as a steel web drum on top of a series of radial concrete fin walls, the Double Cone also is the only vertical structural support for the large cantilevered roof acting as a large, singular column.

During day-to-day use, the ground level of the Double Cone contains a public café with outdoor seating, and the upper level links to a world-class restaurant, bar and lounge within the roof volume with views overlooking the APEC park and river beyond.

During the festival the Double Cone marks the Red Carpet Zone and VIP entrance to the “Busan Cinema Center”, and can be used as a pre-event space for VIP’s on the ground level, or as a pre-staging area for transfer to the Red Carpet procession to the outdoor cinema stage, or to the upper levels of the Cinema Mountain or BIFF Hill foyers via the red carpet spiralling ramp and bridges suspended from the roof.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image 

Cinema Mountain

The Cinema Mountain is a multifunctional building containing both a 1,000 seat multifunctional theater with fly-tower and full backstage support, and a three-screen multiplex comprised of a 400-seat and two 200-seat Cinemas. Separate entrances and foyers are provided for theater and cinema respectively, however the foyers and circulation are designed so that they can be combined depending on operational preferences.

Complete structural separation between the theater and the cinemas ensures optimal noise isolation for the theater space, which is designed as a first-class, flexible hall with seating on two levels and optimal sight lines and adjustable acoustics. A flexible proscenium type stage with side stages and fly-tower accommodates movable acoustical towers used to close down the stage volume for concerts and operatic theater, but can be easily moved for theater, musicals and other staged events. The stage includes a fore-stage lift that can provide additional seating, an orchestra pit or stage extension as preferred. Horizontally tracking curtains along the walls of the audience chamber can be hidden or deployed to adjust the acoustics of the space.

Second floor plan – click above for larger image 

Urban Valley / Outdoor Cinema

The Urban Valley combines a flexible flat ground surface and large stepped tribunes of the BIFF Hill as seating for a 4,000 seat Outdoor Cinema. The Valley is sheltered by a large sculpted outdoor roof with an LED ceiling surface and is oriented towards a flexible stage and screen area on the outside of the Eastern façade of the Cinema Mountain. Accommodation for purpose built projection screens, stages, loudspeaker and lighting arrays are provided allowing for exterior performances to share the interior theater’s backstage facilities.

Third floor plan – click above for larger image 

BIFF Hill

The BIFF Hill is a ground surface formation creating the tribune seating space of the outdoor cinema and accommodating the concourse, the convention hall, the BIFF-center, the BIFF-offices and the visual media center. Given the flexible organization of the ground plan, it can be easily adapted to the different requirements during festival and day-to-day usage.

Fifth floor plan – click above for larger image 

Red Carpet Zone

During the BIFF festival, or for other special events, the Red Carpet Zone is created by a special drop-off and media-event processional entrance at the Double Cone entrance element. A red carpet can be extended from the Double Cone event space and photo position to the south through the park and along a pier. VIP’s can enter from limousines along the street edge, or arrive by boat from the pier. Various options are provided for the red carpet circulation from the Double Cone to the different event and performance spaces depending on the scenario preferred, including a vibrant spiralling ramp from the staging level of the event space to the VIP restaurant lounge of the upper roof or to the BIFF Hill and Cinema Mountain on upper levels of the foyers. During non-event periods the Red Carpet Zone acts as the symbolic entryway into the Busan Cinema Center complex.

Seventh floor plan – click above for larger image

Memorial Court & Walk of Fame

The Walk of Fame contains the Memorial Court as a public plaza. Our proposal is to imbed sources in the ground surface projecting holographic images of the stars, directors, producers and the like who have been made a part of the Walk of Fame. Their avatars inhabit the memorial court as permanent residents; however their programs can be changed to show variable aspects of information over time or in relation to specific BIFF- events.

During non-event times the Memorial Court is used as a grand entryway to the Cinema Mountain and contains an outdoor dining area of the Double Cone Café overlooking the park and water beyond.

Due to the column-free sheltered roof above, the public plaza of the Memorial Court is a multi-functional event space that can be utilized for BIFF- or Busan City- events without interrupting the day-to-day activities of the Busan Cinema Center, or simultaneously with other events in the additional spaces.

Long section 1 – click above for larger image

BIFF Canal Park

The BIFF Canal Park is proposed as an extension of the open network of public programs into the planned riverside park, and as a linking element between the river and the cinema complex. A new pedestrian footbridge is proposed to connect the Busan Cinema Center site with the park across the Boulevard to the South connecting the Double Cone with the APEC Park. An additional outdoor event ‘bowl’ is proposed surrounded by canals that can provide public and private boat access to the project site. Space for a future extension of the Busan Cinema Center project is proposed as an island among the canals, further integrating the cultural functions of the Busan Cinema Center project with the surrounding public space and landscape environment.

Long section 2 – click above for larger image

Competition (1st Prize): 11/2005

Start of Planning: 01/2007
Start of Construction: 10/2008
Opening: 29/09/2011
Completion: 2012

Cross section 1 – click above for larger image

Site Area: 32,100 m²
Net Floor Area (interior spaces): 51,067 m²
Gross Floor Area (interior spaces): 57,981 m²
Built-up Area: 10,005 m² (without roofs)
Cubage: 349,708 m³

Cross section 2 – click above for larger image

Building Costs: about EUR 100 Mio
Costs per m²: 1.725 EUR/m² (excl. exterior spaces)

Cross section 3 – click above for larger image

The post Busan Cinema Centre
by Coop Himmelb(l)au appeared first on Dezeen.

Sheets of tarpaulin roll up to reveal shelves for pots and condiments at a Seoul restaurant inspired by street food stalls by Lim Tae Hee Design Studio (+ slideshow).

Play Pot is a ‘boonsik’ restaurant offering the kind of small Korean snacks that are usually sold on the streets.

The tarpaulin on the walls mimics the tented coverings of temporary food stalls, with some sheets rolled up and tied while others are zipped shut.

Yellow and white material pinned to the ceiling also references the striped fabric of these tented canopies, while more stripes appear on the restaurant’s facade.

Cupboards painted in shades of purple and green form the base of the kitchen counter and potted flowers are dotted around between the wooden tables and chairs.

See all our stories from South Korea »

See all our stories about restaurants »

Photographs are by Park Youngchae.

Here’s some more information from Lim Tae Hee Design Studio:

Play Pot is a Boonsik restaurant. Boonsik is a term used to refer to inexpensive Korean snacks easily found on Pojangmacha. (food vendor). The main idea behind Play Pot is ‘super luxury food vendor’: taking the favorites of what you love from the street and giving them a gourmet twist, while still keeping the accessibilty, inexpensive prices and customer service like a regular food chain.

By looking at the place, Play Pot brings the outside space into the interior space of the restaurant, creating a space within the space. The design took inspiration from pojangmacha (food vendors) which, although usually located in the middle of the street, are inviting spaces.

Play Pot’s sensibility was designed so that the interior space looks like exterior, breaking down the invisible barrier between exterior and interior space. The use of metaphorical road signs was an attempt to hint at this.

Plan – click above for larger image

From studying pojangmacha, the material and tarpaulin played a significant role. Tarpaulin is a heavy duty water proof cloth usually made with plastic. It is commonly used in normal food vendors in Korea. The material in itself has the quality of opacity that allows light to come through. This creates more interesting atmosphere than that of daytime, creating twilight or warm night time.

Tarpaulin wall – click above for larger image

Pojangmacha has its own merits and own culture. Zippers are used to make windows out of tarpaulin tents, or the rims were rolled up to make an entrance. Play Pot was a project that stimulates nostalgia, familiarity and recreates its own culture.

Facade – click above for larger image

Location: Bangbae dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Korea
Area: 77.62 sq.m.
Function and purpose : Boonsik restaurant
Materials: Exposed concrete, paint finish, plywood, tarpaulin
Design time: April – June 2012
Date of completion: June 2012
Designer: Lim, Taehee
Design team: Lim Tae Hee design studio
Construction company: Jo, Woogon
Collaboration Artist: U.JA design lab

The post Play Pot restaurant by
Lim Tae Hee Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

This crematorium in Seoul by Korean firm HAEAHN Architecture folds up from the landscape and curls around a peaceful courtyard and pool of water.

Gardens and ponds run alongside the two-storey building, while grass and plants cover the entire roof.

Visitors enter beneath a sheltered canopy, before following a procession through the building that trails around the courtyard and ends at one of the gardens.

Skylights bring natural light into the building from above and are reflected in the polished marble floors.

We’ve previously featured a few crematoriums, including one with fortress-like walls and dozens of square windows.

Photography is by Park Youngchae.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

Seoul Memorial Park

Secluded by mountain hills from a bustling highway gateway, Seoul Memorial Park rests in a serene valley area of the Woo-Myun Mountain on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. Seoul Memorial Park is a crematorium constructed in harmony with the natural terrain of the site, which previously lent calming scenic views to meditative passing-by hikers, and is now converted to a sanctuary for solemn rituals concluding life’s journeys.

Canvas for Land Art

To overcome the unwelcomed response from the community, this crematorium was sought to be a “non-erected” building. Instead, Seoul Memorial Park emerges as a form of “land art” sculpted into the existing topography with a flowing array of architectural forms and motifs. Concaved at the center of the Park, lies a courtyard encompassed by a series of ritual spaces devoted to separate functions.

Site plan – click above for larger image

These spatial layers bordering the courtyard resonate from a distance with the surrounding mountain trails and ridges. The 2-storey high crematorium facility configured in the curvilinear belt along the courtyard has roof structures linked in the way flower petals pinwheel one another, punctuated by a reflective pool at the very heart of the courtyard.

Ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Comfort in the Final Journey

Families in bereavement take the final journey of parting as they encircle the courtyard along a path reminiscent of spiritual spaces with vaulted ceilings and indirect lighting. Towards the cremation alcove, the ceiling rises drastically as a clearstory above a triforum. Upon completion of the path, a meandering garden comforts the bereft.

East elevation – click above for larger image

As the water from the mountain flows down and gives life to the garden, one might be reminded of the transfiguration of sorrows in praise of the harmony in nature. The garden shimmers with sunlight, whispers with snowfalls, and dances with spring rains. Season by season, tranquility is discovered and the spirit is renewed. Just as nature was dissolved into a building to rest in the valley, Seoul Memorial Park was embodied in a piece of land art to celebrate life and transfigure sorrows.

North elevation – click above for larger image

Date of Completion: 2012
Site Area: 36,000 m2
GFA: 18,000 m2
Client: Seoul Municipal Facilities Management Corporation

West elevation – click above for larger image

2009 winning competition entry and 2012 built project by HAEAHN architecture.

The post Seoul Memorial Park
by HAEAHN Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: architect Steven Holl gives a tour of the gallery beneath a pool of water he designed at the Daeyang Gallery and House in South Korea in the first of two movies by architectural filmmakers Spirit of Space. 

Holl explains how he was inspired by the patterns of a musical score and how daylight floods into the underground rooms to create “a perfect light”.

See more images of the building in our earlier story, and see more projects by Steven Holl here.

Another movie we’ve published by Spirit of Space features a pavilion at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo – watch it here.

The post Movie: Steven Holl on Daeyang
Gallery and House appeared first on Dezeen.

Slideshow: New York architect Steven Holl has concealed a underground gallery beneath a pool of water in Seoul, the city in South Korea that we’ve been focusing on following a string of proposals for skyscrapers.

Named Daeyang Gallery and House, the copper-clad building has two pavilions that rise up above the water to provide an entrance and an event space for the private gallery, while a third is the home of the owner.

The architects claim that the building’s proportions follow the patterns of a musical score by Hungarian-Canadian composer Istvan Anhalt, which they say can be best observed in the arrangement of 55 skylights on the roofs of the three blocks.

More skylights are scattered across the base of the pool, so daylight must pass through the water before entering the gallery.

Above: photograph is by Inho Lee

See all our recent stories about projects in South Korea here and see more architecture by Steven Holl here.

Above: photograph is by Inho Lee

Photography is by Iwan Baan, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s some more information from Steven Holl Architects:

Daeyang Gallery and House Seoul, Korea
2008 – 2012

The private gallery and house is sited in the hills of the Kangbuk section of Seoul, Korea.

The project was designed as an experiment parallel to a research studio on “the architectonics of music.”

The basic geometry of the building is inspired by a 1967 sketch for a music score by the composer Istvan Anhalt, “Symphony of Modules,” which was discovered in a book by John Cage titled “Notations.”

Above: photograph is by Inho Lee

Three pavilions; one for entry, one residence, and one event space, appear to push upward from a continuous gallery level below. A sheet of water establishes the plane of reference from above and below.

Above: photograph is by Inho Lee

The idea of space as silent until activated by light is realized in the cutting of 55 skylight strips in the roofs of the three pavilions.

Above: photograph is by Inho Lee

In each of the pavilions, 5 strips of clear glass allow the sunlight to turn and bend around the inner spaces, animating them according to the time of day and season. Proportions are organized around the series 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55.

Views from within the pavilions are framed by the reflecting pool, which is bracketed by gardens that run perpendicular to the skylight strips.

In the base of the reflecting pool, strips of glass lenses bring dappled light to the white plaster walls and white granite floor of the gallery below.

A visitor arrives through a bamboo formed garden wall at the entry court, after opening the front door and ascending a low stair.

He or she can turn to see the central pond at eye level and take in the whole of the three pavilions, floating on their own reflections.

The interiors of the pavilions are red and charcoal stained wood with the skylights cutting through the wood ceiling. Exteriors are a rain screen of custom patinated copper which ages naturally within the landscape.