Nested Fictions
 
Gyeonghuigung Palace in Seoul is a conflicting ground where fiction and history collide. It is where 20-year old restored palace, air-raid shelter from WWII, and a history museum that sits on the very ruins of the palace are located. In light of the assertion that fiction and history are structurally identical because they are made of narratives (P. Ricoeur), architecture interweaves the two to unleash stories and interpretations. This project proposes a visible storage for museums where artifacts hitherto kept secret are revealed to the public. Forms of fiction, including library, kiosk, warehouse and silos store and display artifacts in an unprecedented method. The column system in the underground is derived from the footprint of the palace, completing the double semantic structure where forms of fiction that nest historical artifacts are nested in forms of history. Two staircases that rise from the underground nest the palace into the circulation system. The museum, the air-raid shelter, the palace, and the visible storage are integrated into one compound, and the palace is no more a solitary island but a part of the urban fabric.
 
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Connected City : Playground
 
The most homogeneous openspace in the city is the playground according to the Neighborhood Unit. But it is actually a closed space. There’s some concert, film screening, and swimming events, but these events occur limitely and temporarily. But It says the playground has the potential to become an ‘openspace’. On the other hand, There is also a situation where the number of students is decrease, and the school close. If there is no school, it means that the school district will be expanded, which means that the community will be blurred. In addition, we have some questions about the role of the school due to the coronavirus. ‘what is the fundamental role of the school? What should the school’s role be?’ If the school share the programs of the school and playground with the city, the whole city can be active while protecting the existing schools and playgrounds. This project proposes new prototypes for schools and playgrounds, and I designed an example which combines my catalogues on the site of a low-rise residential area in Sadang-dong, Seoul. In my suggestion, The playground becomes the city itself. In particular, The continuous floors of the playground will become a three dimensional city, actively forming realationships with the surroundings. That could cause changes in the city in the near future.

Re-defining the meaning of Seoul city wall
 
“what is a new role of Seoul city wall?”
 
Architecture is language for communication. Architecture delivers meaning to us, and its meaning changes as the surrounding context changes. Therefore, architecture continues changing in historical context. The meaning of Seoul city wall has also changed; a fortress wall to mark city’s boundaries and defend the city from the outside, became to be located in the middle of Seoul. However, the fortress was simply designated as a target for preservation, ignoring concerns about its new role. As a result, the elements of Seoul city wall were left fragmented.
 
Located on a site between Changsin-dong and Dongdaemun, the new urban space adjacent to the traces of the former Seoul city wall re-defines it as a routine path rather than a wall. The new “wall structure” that follows the traces of the disappeared Seoul city wall connects changsin-dong and cheonggyecheon and provides a place for young designers and visitors to communicate. Here, people move in a direction that is parallel to the wall or move back and forth between the wall, reconfiguring historical and cultural values of the Seoul city wall. Various acts intersect around the wall. As a result, Seoul city wall is no longer a wall that disconnects two spaces, but a path to face both spaces.

Aging In Seoul
 
Architecture aims and results in creating space, which is assumed to be the use of space. However, the use of space is not permanent and the architecture that follows will be temporary. The proposals towards society have resulted in the functional aspects, and such proposals related to the situation that people live in a certain ‘town’ by age. This site is typical low-rise residential area in Seoul, and three elderly facilities are sited. These facilities are all located at the top of the slope, on the remaining site, because of administrative expediency, and are physically and psychologically excluded from the local community. So far, this method has been a reasonable alternative, but in aging society, the method of gradually excluding the elders from where their lives existed, without considering any diversity of them, can no longer be the best proposal. This project is a new proposal towards ever-changing society. I expect it to be a proposal that makes citizen to aging in place where their lives have been.

‘Neo Agora : The New Typology of Democratic Culture’
 
Architecture begins with the formation or disconnection of relationships through boundaries. ‘The in-between space’ is the middle area where the boundaries meet, and it is a distinctive space where various relationships coexist. Therefore, ‘the In-Between space’ is the key to capturing publicness in the city.
 
Politics greatly influences our daily lives. However, we usually feel politics are too far from our daily life. As politics become bureaucratic and political discourse locked in two parties, politics is gradually moving away from our lives.
 
The ancient Agora was a marketplace, a square, and a political space, where politics blended in with our lives. People were able to develop democracy through sharing different opinions. On the other hand, now in Korea, cities, squares, and political spaces are separated. To take our democracy one step further, we need a “public” space like ‘Agora’, where citizens can share various perspectives. I propose a new typology of political-cultural space that blends politics with our lives.
 
By borrowing familiar forms of cultural facilities, such as auditoriums, exhibition halls and libraries, I created a space for citizens to easily immerse themselves in politics. And the common spaces surrounding these large spaces were freely arranged with various public programs.
 
The massive canopy that covers the entire building, controls the light in building and outdoor spaces, while revealing its symbolism. Instead of standing tall in the city, the building emcompasses low and wide. The scenery of countless people walking freely through the building will imply a new symbolism in our society.

Reassembling the fragments : Reconfiguration of Korean Villas (Multi-family housing)
 
Summary
In an era of AI design and construction, the architect’s role as a trend leader who preoccupies photo spots and hashtags through original images will be more emphasized. By renovating Korean villas (multi-family housing), housing problems such as daylighting, parking, security, and lack of green has been solved and strengthen the community with shared-living-stairs, presenting a renovation prototype of the villa which emphasizes an original image by recycling the elements from the demolished buildings.
 
Shared-living-stairs
The shared space is a communication place where the tenants naturally encounter each other. The whole building including stairs is a shared living room where tenants take off their shoes. They sit on the stairs read books and talk. On landings and corridors, there are lots of programs without boundaries like shared kitchens, dining, playgrounds, daycare, libraries, theaters and sports facilities.
 
Structural strategy
There are three structural strategies depending on the type of structure. For the RC buildings, the existing grid will be extended up to three additional floors, leaving only columns and outer walls. And for masonry buildings there will be truss shelves casing them. For the in-between space, it shares the sidewalls of the existing buildings and the floors are hung on both sides.
 
Reassembling the fragments
Because the concept of this project is reconfiguring the villa, I brought many elements from the demolished buildings and recycled them. For the finishing material, a collage pattern mixed with the finishing material from the demolished buildings was applied.

Shoppertoire
 
“Architecture finds itself in a perpetual cycle of catch-up with the world.”
In architecture as a system, a skeleton of infrastructure and a framework of elements combine together to aggregate and encourage permutations. The role of the architect is not to monopolize the design process but to set up a framework of repertoires leading to varying consequences from which inhabitants can make choices according to their needs and preference. In this project, elements of shopping, logistics and product handling were deconstructed, modularized, reassembled, and overlaid on the old structures of Namdaemun market complexes. The conveyor belt system connects the small and large scale shops, the warehouses, the loading dock, and the shop-aiding services while the modularized tectonics allow spatial expansion of the grid system. The clarity of each element and their juxtaposition provides both informational and navigational transparency in the once opaque, maze-like complexes in which the shoppers can discover a new experience value to shopping. Repertoires are mutated, mirrored and morphed continuously in a system where the inhabitants wield power on their own habitat, and the architecture responds to change quickly and effectively.