Yeorim / URCODE Architecture

Architects: URCODE Architecture
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Architect In Charge: Hoon Shin
Area: 323.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Nam-sun Lee

From the architect. The Yeorim, which it is designed into a contemporary residential and retail space that defines the mix of residential and commercial area in Yangjae-Dong, Seoul, South Korea. As the Yeorim is construction of a five storey building with two floors of residential spaces and commercial spaces, I considered how to divided clients’ privacy life and openness for commercial spaces.

Having multiplex dwellings is the way to introduce to solve the problems of housing system for narrow spaces. In a multiplex dwelling, the residents live in a same building, and the households are divided, however it is not an apartment house. It is ironic notion that the building is the form of living itself rather than having in home ownership. It is the fact that when people come the idea of having houses, they follow economic logics than surroundings. At this point, architect meets the major question, how to solve the floor area ratio. It is very natural to follow economic knowledge for using spaces to reach the limitation. However, I wish people to consider its surroundings, designs, the spatial layouts and so on. This is the reason I started this project.

The building in the city would be prone to protect of privacy and secure lightening. As an architect, I started to make up for weak points of designing this building. In southern residential spaces, it secures lightening but it has lack of privacy. On the other hand in northern residential spaces, there needed to be more lightening. The residential spaces can be hidden by design blocks. For this reason, I used design blocks for keeping the safety and lightening as well as a space for viewing sky. From a particular space the building thus reflects the sky and its surroundings. This space does not belong to floor area ratio which contributes to add more space for residence.

For exterior of the Yeorim used by exposed reinforced concrete and design block. If the reason for using exposed reinforced concrete in Japan is for visual and structural stability caused by earthquakes, Korea, on the other hand, it has focused on vibes of material itself. According to this reason, I intend to emphasis on interior than exterior that using exposed reinforced concrete is simple and clear so there need not to be add more to decorate. It is like giving full stop at the end of sentence.