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Dezeen archive: this week on Dezeen we’ve featured a series of stories on skyscrapers in the Yongsan International Business district in Seoul, so now we’ve grouped together all our stories about South Korea. See all the stories »
Skyscrapers in Seoul: this skyscraper with a pointy midriff is the second of two stories about buildings designed for the Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea, by architect Daniel Libeskind.
Harmony Tower will be located in the north-eastern corner of the new commercial district next to another skyscraper designed by architect Dominique Perrault and will contain offices on 38 of its 46 floors.
Sheltered gardens will line the southern and eastern facades, offering views out towards the nearby Han river.
The base of the building will also taper inwards to create a larger area of landscaping around the entrance.
See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects commissioned by developer DreamHub.
Here’s some more information from Studio Daniel Libeskind:
Harmony Tower
Harmony Tower, a project that is part of the new Yongsan International Business district (YIBD)development in Seoul, is an iconic, 21st century sustainable office tower that is 46 floors.
The design for the tower is inspired by YunDeung, traditional Korean paper lanterns. The concept is to create a tower as a faceted lantern, whose multiple planes reflect the sky and the earth and capture the light on its differing angles, creating a glowing gateway and beacon in the YIBD site.
The sculpted tower is subtly shaped by the urban context. The tower tapers at its base to create a feeling of space and openness for the pedestrian plaza. The form then reaches out in the middle of the tower to maximize the floor plates and Han River views and to create a sense of scale marking the gateway from the western entrance to the site. The tower then tapers back and up to its top to allow the most light and air onto the other towers around, creating a strong ascending peak to the tower. The tower form creates multiple perspectives, like a sculpture in the round, with an ever changing public profile responding specifically to the site.
The tower contains unique vertical winter gardens on the south and west facades, providing users access to natural ventilation and planted park settings at each of the 38 office floors. The gardens not only act as a special amenity to all the tenants, but also a buffer to the direct sunlight hitting the glass building. The gardens function as open, park space within the building, but also help to reduce the heat gain and allow the building to function more sustainably. Harmony Tower is a state of the art workplace, interweaving themes of nature, sustainability, and efficiency in a faceted, sculptural form.
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Building size: 100,000 sq.m
Structure: Concrete central core and floor slabs with steel columns and mega bracing
Client: Dream Hub, AMC – Yongsan Development Co., Ltd.
Structural engineer: ARUP
Mechanical / Electrical / Plumbing engineer: ARUP
Landscape architect: Martha Schwartz Partners
Lighting designer: Focus Lighting
Status: In design
Skyscrapers in Seoul: the first of two stories about buildings that architect Daniel Libeskind has designed for the Yongsan International Business District that he masterplanned for Seoul, South Korea, features three towers inspired by the movements of a Korean Buddhist dance.
Named Dancing Towers, the 41-storey skyscrapers will each have a curved body that the architect likens to the twisted sleeves of traditional Seung-Moo dancers’ costumes.
All three towers will be positioned on a single podium, which will house the shared foyer for 834 apartments on the upper storeys.
Just like SOM’s proposals nearby, the towers will contain structural columns within their curtain wall facades, so as not to interrupt the spaces within.
See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects commissioned by developer DreamHub.
Here’s a project description from Studio Daniel Libeskind:
Dancing Towers
Dancing Towers, a project that is part of the new Yongsan International Business District YIBD development in Seoul, is a mixed used development that consists of three 41 story residential towers,( a total of 834 total residential units) with amenities, retail, parking and a connecting commercial podium base.
The design for the Dancing Towers is inspired by the traditional Korean Buddhist Dance known as Seung-Moo. The subtle rotation of the towers creates the illusion they are dancing, as inspired by the long sleeves of the Seung-Moo dancer’s traditional costumes, gracefully propelled by the dancer’s movements. The towers are engineered with a unique structure of a central concrete core and alternating cantilevered fin walls to support the floors that create column free buildings that allow the forms to ‘dance’ and twist while opening up panoramic views from the apartment interiors.
While creating an interrelated composition, the location of the three towers in the site and each tower’s rotations are oriented to create maximum light and views toward the water, the YIBD project, the city of Seoul and the mountains beyond for the residents.
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Building size: 265,000 sq.m
Structure: Concrete central core with cantilevered concrete fin walls and floor slabs
Client: Dream Hub, AMC – Yongsan Development Co., Ltd.
Structural engineer: ARUP
Mechanical / Electrical / Plumbing engineer: ARUP
Landscape architect: Martha Schwartz Partners
Lighting designers: Focus Lighting
Status: In design
Skyscrapers in Seoul: American architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have designed a skyscraper with glazed triangular facets for emerging commercial centre the Yongsan International Business District of Seoul, which we’ve been focussing on this week.
The Diagonal Tower will be a 343-metre-high office block on the north-eastern side of the district where fourteen other architects are also proposing high-rise developments.
Structural columns will be concealed within the building’s faceted glass skin, while a series of shading fins will help to reduce solar gain.
A web of netting will cloak a double height entrance lobby at the base of the tower, which will lead up to over 145,000 square metres of open-plan offices, a fitness centre, a cafe and a lounge in the penthouse to be shared by all the offices.
A small auditorium will be housed in an adjacent glazed cube covered in matching netting.
See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects within the masterplan designed by Daniel Libeskind for developer DreamHub.
SOM are also the architects of the tallest building in the world right now, the Burj Khalifa, which you can see images of here.
Here’s a more detailed explanation of the Diagonal Tower from SOM:
Diagonal Tower, Yongsan International Business District
Seoul, South Korea
Diagonal Tower is a 343-meter-tall office building in the Yongsan International Business District, a commercial and mixed use district planned for the center of Seoul, South Korea. The 62-story tower provides over 145,000 square meters of open office space, two double-height sky lobbies with a cafeteria and fitness center, and a penthouse executive lounge.
The project also includes two retail pavilions and a multifunctional auditorium, cubic in dimension, directly to the west of the tower. Diagonal Tower is distinctive for its rotated profile and integrated, energy-efficient enclosure. The tower commences at grade with a conventional square floor plate, which is rotated 45 degrees at one third the height of the tower and then rotated again at two thirds the height of the tower.
The resulting geometry offers varying octagonal floor plates and engages nearby landmarks. Instead of penetrating the interior of each floor plate, structural columns are integrated into the skin of the building. A megaframe carries loads diagonally along the folded edges of the tower’s faceted geometry and is supplemented by a set of vertical columns running along the facade at 12 meter spacing. The structural diagonal grid mitigates wind and seismic forces and uses 25% less steel than a conventionally framed building.
Sun shading fins, placed diagonally on each facet of the tower, vary in depth and spacing to achieve ideal shading targets. Overall, the repeating modularity of the structural and exterior wall profiles define a strikingly sculptural silhouette against the Yongsan skyline.
The ground floor lobby at the base of the tower is clad in a cable net wall, minimizing the appearance of the tower’s structural supports and creating a grand and inviting entrance to the building. The ceiling of the lobby slopes up and away from the core wall to hide the transferring columns, which allows the lobby to remain column-free with the exception of four corner piers. The piers, sloped ceiling and core walls are all clad in the same grey stone, providing the impression of monolithic stability at the base of the tower.
The building façade consists of a custom unitized curtain wall system with thermally broken aluminum framing and two-sided structurally-sealed, triple-insulated low-E glazing. Floor to ceiling glass units extend seamlessly to cover both vision and spandrel areas, and are broken only by a narrow horizontal track at each floor for the attachment of curtain-wall supported, aluminum fin shading devices.
Structural columns are integrated into the skin of the building; this effort not only creates an uninterrupted expanse of open space at each floor, but also intelligently balances the window-to-wall ratio to improve the building’s thermal performance. The tower will also be one of the first office building in Seoul to employ an integrated chilled beam cooling system.
Located to the west of the tower, a perfectly cubic 40m x 40mx 40m glass auditorium provides multifunctional space that can transform to offer a variety of spatial configurations. The exterior façade’s cable net wall system minimizes the wall’s structural members and exemplifies the concept of a pure glass volume. This concept is reinforced by the frit pattern on the glass, which not only reduces direct solar insolation, but also softens the cube into an abstract and ethereal volume, preventing it from becoming sterile and un-inviting.
An iconic solid mass is present within this ethereal glass enclosure; depending on the event within, this solid mass can open up and become transparent, offering passers-by views of the events inside. The openness on all four sides of the cube provides visual and physical connections to the Diagonal Tower, retail pavilions, and adjacent buildings.
Two small retail pavilions along the glass shaft boxes and trees of plaza landscape create neighborhood-scale spaces on the otherwise vast plazas between buildings, offering pedestrians and passers-by an attractive and friendly environment.
New York firm REX was another of the fifteen architects commissioned to design skyscrapers for the fast-growing Yongsan International Business District of Seoul, South Korea. They’ve proposed a tower that looks like like a filing cabinet with its drawers open.
A hollow centre and large courtyard garden will be revealed at the heart of the 144-metre-high building, which is titled Project R6.
A series of compact apartments will overlook this courtyard from within the tower’s upper storeys, while shops will surround it on the lower levels.
The apartments are designed to accomodate short-term occupants, so few will have a footprint greater than 40 square metres and each will incorporate space-saving measures such as moving walls and fold-away bedrooms.
The project is due to complete in 2016.
The Yongsan International Business District was masterplanned by Daniel Libeskind and is the biggest urban development project in South Korea. Due for completion in 2024, the masterplan was commissioned by South Korean developer DreamHub.
Other projects featured so far from the district include a building shaped like a hash symbol and two towers that resemble the exploding World Trade Centre on 9/11. See all the stories here.
Images are by Luxigon.
Here’s some more information from REX:
Yongsan International Business District “Project R6”
Seoul, Korea
YIBD “Project R6” is an urban boutique residence for short-term business people, young urban professionals, and foreign residents.
Due to the transience of its target users and the short durations during which they are home, R6’s unit sizes are small, including 40 m2, 50 m2, and 60 m2 residences, with the majority being 40 m2.
To meet the trends of its users and compensate for its small unit size, R6 must engender a strong sense of community and its residences must be highly attractive, providing generous views, daylight, and cross-ventilation.
Maximizing daylight and cross-ventilation are also paramount to providing a highly sustainable residence.
In a standard housing tower, 40 m2 to 60 m2 units would create poorly dimensioned and oppressive residences, offering constrained views, little daylight, and poor ventilation, and community would be limited to activities at the tower’s base.
By pulling layers of the typical housing tower in opposing directions, the small units maintain their size, but are stretched into favorable proportions that provide views and daylight from both sides, excellent cross-ventilation, and a strong sense of community through the creation of a central courtyard, roof terraces, and conversation/reading/play pods.
The stretched layers are strategically positioned to guarantee unobstructed daylight into all units, and to create adequate continuity of the building’s primary structure: a concrete-encased steel mega-brace that encircles the courtyard.
The mega-brace supports a shelf-like matrix of walls and floor slabs that define each unit. Into each shelf is inserted a wooden shell containing a bathroom on one side and a kitchen on the other.
A movable wall—using standard compact shelving technology—shifts within the unit to define a bedroom (adjacent to the bathroom) or a living room (adjacent to the kitchen). The wall includes a bed, nightstands, couch, television mount, task lights, and storage.
A high-performance façade—composed of frameless IGUs—emphasizes the remarkable exterior views while interior black-out and shade roller blinds control sunlight and glare.
The floor to ceiling interior façade—also composed of frameless IGUs and equipped with black-out and shade roller blinds—provides spatial relief and a sense of community while maintaining privacy.
The resulting architecture provides views and daylight from both sides, and excellent cross-ventilation.
Community and spatial relief are further generated by conversation/reading/play pods extending into the courtyard.
The pods playfully assume the varying widths of the walls behind such that no views are blocked and privacy in the units is maintained.
Block R6 is a narrow parcel bounded by the planned Mountain Park—including Children’s Interactive Spray Park, Rail Road Museum, Outdoor Amphitheater, and Yongsan Station Esplanade—and the central park of the planned development Zone B3, adjacent to Hangang-ro. By placing the building to the south of Block R6, all units command great views and the building forms a gateway to YIBD from Hangang-ro.
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Client: Dreamhub Project Financing Vehicle Co., Ltd.
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Program: 47,800 m2 (514,500 sf) of luxury housing for short-term residents, 27,000 m2 (290,600 sf) of retail, and 929 parking stalls
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Area: 115,500 m2 (1,240,000 sf)
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Construction budget: Confidential
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Status: Commenced 2011; completed Schematic Design 2012; completion expected 2016
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Design architect: REX
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Key personnel: Tiago Barros, Adam Chizmar, Danny Duong, Luis Gil, Gabriel Jewell-Vitale, SeokHun Kim, Armen Menendian, Romea Muryń, Roberto Otero, Se Yoon Park, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Lena Reeh Rasmussen, Yuan Tiauriman
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Executive architect: Mooyoung
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Consultants: Barker Mohandas, Buro Happold, Front, Level Acoustics, Magnusson Klemencic, Scape, Shen Milsom Wilke, Tillotson Design
The next building in our series from the new Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea, is a skyscraper designed by French architect Dominique Perrault, with faceted glass that will ripple across the surface.
Named The Blade, the 300-metre tower will be diamond-shaped in plan, with its sharpest edges at the north-east and south-west corners of the site.
Shops will occupy the lowest storeys but the rest of the tower will be dedicated to office accommodation.
Voids in the floors will create high ceilings for four separate lobbies, which will provide a variety of meeting places for occupants.
Perrault was one of fifteen architects commissioned to design a tower for the business district, which was masterplanned by Daniel Libeskind and is the biggest urban development project in South Korea. Due for completion in 2024, the masterplan was commissioned by South Korean developer DreamHub. See our earlier stories about designs for the district by MVRDV, BIG and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.
Here’s some more information from Dominique Perrault Architecture:
Dominique Perrault has been selected to build a tower within the future Yongsan International Business Center in Seoul, whose master plan was designed by Daniel Libeskind.
Dominique Perrault has unveiled on May 2, during a press conference in Seoul, an original silhouette tower reaching 300 meters high: The Blade.
In 2008, Dreamhub, a consortium of thirty of the largest Korean companies, has launched an international urban planning competition for the master plan of Yongsan International Business center (587, 000 square meters). Asymptote, Foster & Partners, Jerde Partnership, Daniel Libeskind and SOM are involved. The project named “Archipelago 21″ proposed by Daniel Libeskind was selected following the competition. In September 2011 and for two months, Dreamhub has ordered to fifteen renowned international architecture studios to design towers within the master plan.
Today, in the heart of historic Seoul, along the north bank of the Han River, the South Korean capital begins a makeover. At the center of public transportation of Seoul, linking the various parts of the metropolis with one another, the Yongsan International Business District is about to know a metamorphosis and to become a new symbol and growth engine for 21st century.
The Yongsan International Business Center, ambitious program of nearly 3 millions square meters, is organized as an archipelago of vertical buildings inter-connected a by large park.
Connected to three other major business centers of the city, the future Business Center is developed away from the large monofunctional complexes, offering beyond the offices areas, housing, shops and many government facilities (cultural facilities, education and transport infrastructure).
Dominique Perrault, the only French architected invited, takes part again in Seoul’s transformation. After the completion of Ewha Womans University, the architect, through a unique architectural style, participates to the identity of the future business district.
By its silhouette and its dynamic allure, the tower establishes itself in the area as a geographical landmark. Its mysterious shape appears like a totem, an iconic figure.
It is not a square or a round building, but a rhomboid prism, arranged in a way that makes it look different depending on the angle of approach. Inspired by its slender shape and sharp edges, the tower has been named The Blade.
Within the effervescence of the emerging architectural styles, The Blade contrasts by being rooted in the urban reality, in a dialogue of light and reflections with the neighbouring towers. Like an optical instrument, its façade fragments and then reconstructs the neighbouring landscape to create a new one.
In the way of a sheath, the skin of the tower is clad with glass, reflecting light and its environment, thus releasing a luminous halo which envelopes the silhouette of the tower. This vibration of the building’s skin appears and disappears according to the viewing angle, creating a living architecture, transforming itself with the movements of the sun and the changes of light.
The project sculptures the void like a luxurious material, offering space, light and views of the grand Seoul landscape. The Grand Lobby, the Business Forum, the Wellness or the Panorama Lobby constitute as many cut-outs in the tower volume, dedicated to promenades and relaxation. This superposition of voids contrasts with the constructed volume of adjacent towers and accentuates the lightness of the tower prism.
The voids offer respirations and accommodate collective spaces open to the landscape. At night, they dematerialize the silhouette of the tower, which appears then like a precious carved stone.
Dominique Perrault inaugurated Ewha Womans University, Seoul, in 2008. He has designed in 2011, for Gwangju Design Biennale, Korea, an “Urban Folly”, named the Open Box.
Client Dreamhub – Yongsan Development CO., Ltd.
Architect: Dominique Perrault Architecture
Architect of the records: Samoo
Engineering: Bollinger + Grohmann (structures), HL Technik (Building services, security, coordination), Jean-Paul Lamoureux (accoustic).
Other architecture studios working on the Yongsan International Business Center: AS + GG – Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill Architecture LLP, Riken Yamamoto & FIELDSHOP, Murphy/Jahn Architects, Tange Associate Architects, COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, SDL – Studio Daniel Libeskind Architect, MVRDV, 5+Design, SOM – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, KPF – Kohn Perdersen Fox Associates , Asymptote Architecture, REX Architecture, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
Location: Yongsan International Business Center – Sky Island, Seoul, Korea
Concept design: December 2011
Schematic design: April 2012
Estimated beginning of the construction: January 2013
Estimated end of the construction: December 2016
Tower height: 292,50 m
Number of levels: 56 above ground 8 underground
Surfaces
Tower: 128’400 sqm
Average surface per floor: 2350 sqm gfa
Pavilion: 3’300 sqm
Total: 131’700 sqm
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Footprint
Tower: 2’570 sqm
Pavilion: 875 sqm
Sunken plaza: 780 sqm
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Program
Business forum: business room, banquet room, meeting room pools, business bar and cafe, conciergerie service and amenities
Wellness lobby: sports and fitness club, running track, water bar, wellness center and spa
Offices: state-of-the-art office space, meeting room pools, executive duplex floor including executive board room
Panorama lobby: world class restaurants, bars and shops, rooftop french botanical garden observation deck
A pair of 450 metre-high towers with glass scales by Chicago firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture are the latest of fifteen skyscrapers commissioned for the Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea, following recently released designs by BIG and MVRDV.
Positioned side by side in the fast-growing business and commercial district on the north bank of the Han River, the two Dancing Dragon towers will have a similar design that comprises a supporting central core and a series of wings attached to the sides.
The tallest of the two buildings will be around 450 metres in height, containing offices, apartments, a hotel and shops over a total of 88 floors.
Mullions between the overlapping glass panels of the exterior will incorporate natural ventilation, while huge skylights will span the roof of each tower. A faceted glass shopping centre will create a podium at ground level.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture also designed the kilometre-high Kingdom Tower, which is currently under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and which will be the world’s tallest building when complete.
The firm was commissioned alongside fifteen other architects to design towers for the Yongsan International Business District, which was masterplanned by Daniel Libeskind and which is the biggest urban development project in South Korea. Due for completion in 2024, the masterplan was commissioned by South Korean developer DreamHub.
These plans follow designs by architects BIG and MVRDV for a building shaped like a hash symbol and two towers that resemble the exploding World Trade Centre on 9/11.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture designs Dancing Dragons, a two-tower complex for Seoul’s Yongsan International Business District
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is pleased to announce its design for Dancing Dragons, a pair of landmark supertall mixed-use towers for the new Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea. The buildings, which include residential, “officetel” and retail elements, consist of slender, sharply angled mini-towers cantilevered around a central core. The design aesthetic is highly contemporary yet informed by aspects of traditional Korean culture.
The mini-towers feature a dramatic series of diagonal massing cuts that create living spaces that float beyond the structure. This recalls the eaves of traditional Korean temples—a design theme echoed both in the geometry of the building skin and the jutting canopies at the towers’ base. The theme is extended in the building skin, which suggests the scales of Korean mythical dragons, which seem to dance around the core—hence the project’s name. (Yongsan, the name of the overall development, means “Dragon Hill” in Korean.)
Dancing Dragons’ scale-like skin is also a performative element. Gaps between its overlapping panels feature operable 600-mm vents through which air can circulate, making the skin “breathable” like that of certain animals.
Towers 1 and 2—about 450 meters and 390 meters tall, respectively—share an architectural language and, therefore, a close family resemblance, but are not identical. In the taller structure, the 88-level Tower 1, the massing cuts at the top and bottom of the mini-towers are V-shaped. In the 77-level Tower 2, the cuts move diagonally in a single unbroken line; they are also arranged in a radial pattern around the core that is perceptible as viewers move around the tower.
“There’s a sympathetic and complementary relationship between the two masses at the level of the cuts, almost as though they were dancing,”says Adrian Smith, FAIA, RIBA. “It’s always important for our designs to reflect and interpret the cultures they serve, and the Dancing Dragons complex certainly does that, although in an abstract and highly technological manner. We try to design in a way that is at once beautiful and focused on performance.”
In both buildings, the mini-tower cuts are clad in glass at the top and bottom, making for dramatic skylights above the units at the highest levels and a transparent floor beneath the units at the lowest levels. This offers the opportunity for special high-value penthouse duplex units with spectacular 360-degree views of downtown Seoul and the adjacent Han River, along with an abundance of natural light.
“The abstract recall of the historic structures gives the towers a unique perspective from the ground and the sky while creating unique interior experiences,” says Gordon Gill, AIA. “The shingled texture of the skin is developed with integrated breathable mullions and self-shading cantilevers. It’s a great honor to be joining several other top international architecture firms designing buildings for this remarkable master plan by Studio Daniel Libeskind.”
AS+GG partner Robert Forest, AIA, notes that Dancing Dragons represents AS+GG’s second major project in downtown Seoul. The other is the Head Office of the Federation of Korean Industries, an innovative and highly sustainable office building now under construction and scheduled to be completed next year. “We’re very excited to be making a sustainable contribution to the built environment of Seoul, one of the world’s great cities, in a manner that addresses the need for sustainable high density development while respecting Korean culture,” Forest says. “YIBD, which promises to become one of Seoul’s most dynamic and vital neighborhoods, will be an example of high-quality high-density design, and we’re proud to be a part of that.”
The design team also includes PositivEnergy Practice, a Chicago-based engineering and energy consulting firm that is designing a series of innovative building systems for the project. Sustainable features of the building system design include triple-glazed window units, which minimize heat loss; an overlapping exterior wall system, which creates a self-shading effect; and natural ventilation in all units through operable mullions. Other systems include radiant heating; fuel-cell cogeneration units at the basement level; photovoltaic arrays on the roof surfaces; daylight-linked lighting controls; and heat recovery via electric centrifugal chillers.
The structural scheme for Dancing Dragons, developed by AS+GG in collaboration with the international structural engineering firm Werner Sobek, features eight mega-columns that traverse the vertical length of both cores. The mini-towers are hung off the cruciform cores in a balanced fashion by means of a belt truss system, stabilizing the structure.
The design of the 23,000-square-meter site—part of the larger Yongsan master plan —reinforces the angular geometry of the building massing and skin. Landscape features, designed in collaboration with Martha Schwartz Partners, include sloped berms that echo that geometry. The site also includes a retail podium with a crystalline sculptural form and sunken garden that provide access to a large below-grade retail complex.
Danish architects BIG have designed two skyscrapers for Seoul that will be bridged by two smaller, horizontally rotated blocks.
Height restrictions prevented the architects from planning taller buildings, which is why they added the interlinking floors to their proposals.
The towers will be located in the Yongsan International Business District, which was masterplanned by New York architects Studio Libeskind, and will provide over 600 apartments, as well as a library, a kindergarten and a gallery space.
Roof gardens for residents will cover the surface of both the bridging blocks and a submerged courtyard will be provided below ground level.
The buildings are planned just around the corner from a pair of towers designed by MVRDV, which caused a stir a few months ago due to their resemblance to the exploding World Trade Centre on 9/11. See images of that project here.
See more projects by BIG here, including their recent proposals for a 150-metre-high skyscraper in Vancouver.
More details from the architects are provided below:
BIG DESIGNS CROSS # TOWERS IN SEOUL, KOREA
BIG’s residential towers in the Yongsan International Business District revitalize the Han riverfront into a new commercial and residential center for the citizens of Seoul.
Situated at the south-east edge of the Yongsan master plan designed by Studio Liebeskind for the Korean development group Dreamhub, BIG’s Cross # Towers will contribute to the developing skyline of Seoul and become a recognizable marker of the new cultural and commercial center of the city. BIG was selected to submit a design proposal for Yongsan International Business District among 19 international offices, including SOM, Dominique Perrault, REX and MVRDV.
The 21 000 m2 site is positioned next to the existing urban fabric in the future development zones of the Yongsan master plan. BIG’s design includes two elegant towers with a height of 214 and 204m. To meet the height requirements of the site, the exceeding building mass is transformed into an upper and lower horizontal bar, which bridge the two towers at 140m and 70 m height. The two towers are additionally connected through the arrival bar at the ground level – and a courtyard below ground.
“The Cross # Towers constitute a three-dimensional urban community of interlocking horizontal and vertical towers. Three public bridges connect two slender towers at different levels – underground, at the street and in the sky. Catering to the demands and desires of different residents, age groups and cultures the bridges are landscaped and equipped for a variety of activities traditionally restricted to the ground. The resultant volume forms a distinct figure on the new skyline of Seoul – a “#” that serves as a gateway to the new Yongsan Business District signaling a radical departure from the crude repetition of disconnected towers towards a new urban community that populates the three-dimensional space of the city.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
Both the upper and lower bridge introduce rooftop sky gardens accessible to residents, allowing for outdoor activities, while a courtyard at the heart of the development is an integral part of the overall architectural design.
Dramatic views towards the neighboring towers and visual connections across the courtyard from the retail zone create an exciting space for the residents and visitors.
The outdoor landscape is envisioned to draw from the charm of traditional courtyards combined with the modernity of the project.
Pedestrians at the arrival deck which connects the towers at ground level can enjoy impressive views to the bridges above and to the submerged courtyard below.
“The typical tower inherently removes life from the city it occupies. Circulation is linear and social interactions occur only in lobbies or awkward elevator rides. We propose a building that triples the amount of ground floor – triples the amount of social interaction and reintroduces the idea of neighborhood within the tower complex.”, Thomas Christoffersen, Partner in Charge, BIG.
The development will offer over 600 high-end residences and amenities, including a library, gallery space and a kindergarten. BIG’s design ensures that the tower apartments have optimal conditions towards sun and views.
The bar units are given value through their spectacular views and direct access to the roofscapes, activating the outdoor realm. The exterior facades are developed to correspond to the different orientations and solar conditions, creating a diverse façade which varies from the viewer’s vantage point and the position of the sun.
Slideshow: a wall of wooden scales folds through the glazed facade of this house and studio that Korean architects AND designed for an artist in South Korea.
As the panels emerge behind the glass they begin to separate from one another, creating a series of openings that permit views across from the double height studio to the living quarters behind.
The wall also curves upward to wrap and conceal a bedroom on the first floor.
The two-storey-high exterior walls are constructed from concrete and nestle against a hillside that climbs up behind the house.
See more stories about about studios for artists or designers here.
Photography is by Kim Yong Gwan.
Here’s some more text from AND:
Skinspace
Artist + Painting
An artist walks into the office, introducing himself with a pamphlet of his paintings. Vivid colors and forced brush strokes that densely filled the screens shows his sensibility and thoughts. His use of unfamiliar words to describe his works that he is “interested in ecological theology,” illustrates the naïve mind of the artist that he paints from himself, or he paints himself through the painting. Perhaps, that is why his recent works include a body of a person in a landscape. The body, rather than being separated as a distinctive object, is depicted as part of the aggregated elements of the surrounding landscape where the trees, bushes, and the sky respond to each other blurring the boundary. What he depicts here is not a moment’s phenomenal state; rather it is the deconstruction of the object as a monad, at the same time, it is about things become an integrated being united with the surroundings.
Studio + Nature
The artist has been working at home for more than ten years. The subjects of his paintings are nothing special but spaces of his daily life. He has been constantly projecting his gaze at the parks nearby, streets, a small village in a countryside where he often visits. As seen from his recent exhibition titles, ‘A Talk with a Tree,’ ‘Thinking Forest,’ there is no clear boundary between human and nature in his paintings. Furthermore, the distinction between a body and its surroundings, or interior and exterior is only allusive.
What is clearly revealed is the flow of continuous matter waves and powerful forces that fill the space. A quotation found from his note explains everything, “Molecules think, too.” As an alternative to the Modernist’s ontology that separates man and nature, body and reason, and that postulates a certain dominant structure, his studio explores the world of wholeness. His studio shall reflect his world view. Then the real question is how one constructs an ambiguous field that interior is blurred with exterior, nature permeates into the space, and the artist’s gaze spills out to the nature.
Skin + Space
To the north of the site is a 4 meter high sloped hill, and the site is open towards all three sides. First, a long façade stands on the south of the site and overlooks a stream. The skin of the façade is gently rolled inward as it breaks up the boundary between the interior and the exterior. The rolled in surfaces lift up as they enter the interior and they traverse the interior toward the opposite side of the wall. During the crossing, the panels of the skin are split and distorted, creating loose crevices.
The landscape permeates through the crevice, and so does light. The light colors the space with every moment in time. As a body moves, the space of the crevice changes sensitively. Skin becomes space, and space becomes skin. The boundary is blurred, and the flow that passes through the interior and the exterior becomes denser.
Site: Seohoori, Seojongmyun, Yangpyeonggun, Gyeonggido, Korea
Construction Area: 112.62m2
Gross Area: 130.60m2
Floors: 2
Structure: RC
Project Year: 2010
Designed and Constructed by AND
Slideshow: diagonally skewed lighting disrupts the perpendicular arrangement of this creative workspace in Seoul by Korean architecture and design studio M4.
Named Saii+Kama, the room provides an informal meeting space, cafe and archive for artists at the Moonji Cultural Institute.
The room has a restricted colour palette of just grey and yellow, comprising unfinished pine, exposed concrete and engineering bricks.
Square-gridded bookshelves wrap across the walls and ceiling beams, while stools and benches surround a central bar counter.
Other interior design projects from South Korea include a library condensed into a cube – see all our stories about interiors here.
Photography is by Lee Pyo-Joon.
The text below is from M4:
Munji Culture Center located in Donggyo-dong at Mapo-ku, Korea is a complex place mixed with literature, arts, humanities and social sciences.
This space performs various spectrums of culture and experiment arts and specially the main role of experiment arts, meeting different artists.
This space is for the purpose of break room and also sharing the information about experiment arts and interdisciplinary arts.
We suggest the program mixing café and archive in one space.
This place is programmed for open space, we set up the bar table in the middle and filled with lots of bookcases so that people can use this space for events, rest , reading or lecture.
The square wood frames are for the use of bookshelf, display or other usages.
The space of saii is emphasizing on the importance of true essence of the ingredients and making the morphological feeling very simple. We haven’t used any artificial ingredients but used the true essence of the ingredients. This was done to fill the space with the “color” formed from the mixture of the artist’s ideology.
We think the basic detail is meeting basic arts and we follows the basic concept to be flexible to cover all kinds of events.
We also expect the future to be filled with variouscolors.
Project: saii+kama (creative crictic space)
Design: Yun, Young-sub / Han, Kwang-hyun / m4 /
Design team: Kim-Rang,Kim jae-jin / m4
Constructor: Lee cheon-hee / m4
Location: 184-24 ho-pyung B/D, donggyo-dong, mapo-gu, seoul, korea
Use: creative crictic space
Area: 36 m2
Design Period: November 2011
Completion Period: December 2011
Photo by : Lee Pyo-joon
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