Seoul is a city more accustomed to building quickly and tearing down just as soon as almost any other global metropolis. Despite the massive volume of construction, however, the industry relies heavily on global supply chains for its materials. This system functioned efficiently throughout the last century, but recent geopolitical shifts—such as tariff wars and the war in Ukraine—have caused sharp price fluctuations for key materials, leading to the cancellation of numerous architectural projects in Seoul. The starting point for this project is the belief that architects must begin to speak out about the unsustainability of the underlying structures supporting our construction industry.

In this context, architecture based on material reuse is a highly pragmatic survival strategy that individual architects can adopt. It also offers an opportunity to strengthen domestic demand by reducing dependence on unstable supply chains. Furthermore, considering that as much as 50% of a building’s total lifecycle carbon emissions come from the process of converting raw materials into building products, reusing materials plays a significant role in achieving carbon neutrality.

Great architects such as Viollet-le-Duc, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Charles and Ray Eames were highly attuned to changes in the material production systems of their time. They embraced these shifts and integrated them into their work. In the same vein, what kind of architectural style might emerge from a transition to a circular economy, and what physical construction processes can make it possible?

The site is located near Doksan Station in Geumcheon-gu, an area characterized by aging small factories and low-rise housing. Starting in 2026, the area will undergo extensive demolition as part of Seoul’s first “Urban Regeneration New Deal” project. This proposal assumes a scenario in which materials discarded during these demolitions are recovered and reused for this project. The process began by surveying the entire neighborhood to identify recoverable materials. I then created a custom BIM file—shown in the video—that records the embodied carbon and structural performance of these materials for use in the design process.

The design involves remodeling two small buildings by combining them and adding a modest new extension. The program responds to the recent influx of young artists into Geumcheon-gu by proposing an artist residency. In the plan, the spaces for work, exhibition, and living are arranged sequentially from left to right. The drawings use three line colors: black for existing structures, green for reclaimed materials, and orange for newly purchased materials.

First, the existing structural frames and cores on the site are retained while the rest of the structure is demolished. A long new mass is inserted on the north side, connecting to the existing core to link the volumes. Finally, the ground level is opened to allow public circulation. As a result, the lower levels support pedestrian flows and wandering visitors, while the upper levels provide studio and living spaces for resident artists.

Below are the strategies for constructing the building with reclaimed materials, moving from large-scale frameworks to finer details.

Frame: This strategy creates the structural system by repurposing 3.3-meter-high precast columns and 6.9-meter-span ceiling slabs from the Doksan public parking garage. The internal structure utilizes inverted beams that clamp the columns from both sides. Because the parking garage columns may not have uniform heights, red auxiliary columns are used to address this uncertainty. Similarly, the large gap between columns and buildings allows for adjustments to variations in slab spans. In plan, these columns cross the entire site at 8-meter intervals, establishing overall order. Materials once buried underground now appear prominently in the final design, creating scenes reminiscent of flying buttresses.

Join: This strategy addresses the challenge of joining columns and beams when structural members with the desired spans are hard to source. Using columns and beams salvaged from small local factories, I applied three joining methods that preserve over 90% of structural strength while enabling reuse. One is column jacketing, adding secondary members at joints. Another is an intermeshing detail creating a toothed connection for mismatched H-beams. A third exposes the tensile reinforcement externally. These details reveal a tectonic language rooted in resource circulation, contributing to a club-like atmosphere that attracts people.

Skin: This strategy focuses on the building envelope, specifically the façade of the central mass in the model. It reuses square, standardized panels such as tiles or ceiling finishes salvaged from demolitions. Because the exact dimensions of the reclaimed tiles are unpredictable, the detail uses washers to clamp them, even if their four corners have different thicknesses. By avoiding chemical adhesives or welding, the system allows the tiles to be removed and reused in future projects. To emphasize this idea, I exaggerated the size of the washers to create a visual effect in which the tiles seem temporarily suspended in midair.

These details fundamentally address the unpredictable dimensions of reclaimed materials while enabling continuous, non-destructive reassembly. At the same time, they remain deeply rooted in the local context of Doksan. When such a sustainable architectural ‘formula’ is applied throughout Seoul, architecture can once again become a unifying force that integrates technology, economy, and culture, and gain the power to move to the front lines of the crisis.