By Robert Such. Published in Domus.

Life, energy and movement are some of the meanings for UnSangDong, the name chosen by Jang and Chang Hoon Shin for their studio in Seoul. Text Robert Such “We want to pursue arch itecture that is free from outdated thoughts, traditional or conservative rules,” says Unsangdong’s (Usd) Seoul-based founder and joint principal Yoon Gyoo Jang.

The name UnSangDong embraces several meanings – life, energy, movement and substance over surface. Headed by principals Jang and Chang Hoon Shin, the firm has spent the past few years designing buildings that have gained the architects international recognition and awards.

In a country where clients and construction companies regularly take over the execution and subsequent modification of buildings – much to the annoyance of the architects – USD has managed in most cases to complete work that closely resembles the original design.

Notable works include Kring (KumHo Culture Complex) in Seoul and the glass, wood and steel office building of publishers Life & Power Press in Paju Book City, a complex of publishing-related companies some 30 kilometres northwest of the capital.

Whereas the Life & Power Press building’s floor and ceiling topography is clearly expressed externally, both Kring’s design concept and its name are closely linked to promoting the client’s brand identity.

Completed in 2008, Kring still houses the show apartments – as well as the exhibition, meeting, performance and theatre spaces – built for the KumHo construction firm.

The building’s name combines K from KumHo and ring, hence Kring. Resembling Van Gogh’s silvery starry sky, the circular pattern on Kring’s facade recalls the pattern used on an earlier unbuilt company head office. “The circles on the facade of the Hyunjin Evervill building do not exist by themselves,” says Shin. “We believed that it was more than patterns. We coordinated inner space and outer surface to connect them closely. Our aim was to form a link between urban icon and brand identity of the company,” he says.

Buildings next up for completion are the Seongdong Culture & Art Centre and a new multifaceted envelope for an existing gallery in a residential neighbourhood. The gallery’s new skin exemplifies an interest in making “urban sculpture”, says Jang, “and exploring new structures, materials and the use of space”. On the outside, it brings to mind USD’s Gallery 303. The Seongdong centre, on the other hand, is just one of a number of green projects the firm has worked on over the years, such as the competitionwinning design for the Youngsan- House at Hansei University.

USD is, however, “more interested in ecoarchitecture, not just landscape”, says Shin. It’s clear that “modern architecture tended to consume lots of energy and destroy nature”, he says, adding that in his view “the analysis of environment and energy would appear to play a key role when it comes to design in the future”.

Along with their interest in eco-architecture, Jang and Shin also work to “translate and mirror the current trend of culture”, says Shin. Contemporary trends investigated include the use of public and private space in the city, explored through group studies and exhibitions carried out at Jang’s own Jung Mi So art gallery. Out of this and other research, USD continues to design structurally lightweight buildings, based on abstract geometry, to mesh landscaped

and multipurpose areas, and to design buildings that reflect social trends in a country undergoing rapid change.

By Robert Such. Published in Domus.

Ever since 1975, when Christian de Portzamparc designed Les Hautes Formes in Paris’ 13th arrondissement, France’s social housing agencies have been working to overcome the negative legacy of the barrack-like blocks that had previously characterised too much French public housing. But individual associations, like OPAC and RIVP, have developed their own approaches. For example, OPAC’s Paris housing schemes, under the influence of their architect of choice, Antoine Grumbach, have for many years attempted to blend unobtrusively with their surroundings, employing traditional rather than riskier architecture. OPAC is changing, however. Portzamparc’s protégé Frédéric Borel, who is best known for his exuberant and colourful work, begins building for OPAC later this year. RIVP, on the other hand, has for many years been more adventurous, as demonstrated by Portzamparc’s Les Hautes Formes. After Portzamparc, RIVP went on to commission Borel, and then Herzog & de Meuron.

Borel’s 1989 development on the boulevard de Belleville in the bustling 20th arrondissement, is comprised of three imposing buildings that contrast sharply with their bland setting. Bold and expressive, Borel’s approach is sharply different from Grumbach’s, who aims “not to create objects totally disconnected from the environment” but rather “a building or public space which seems in coherence with the place”.
Herzog & de Meuron, with their design for RIVP, seem to have bridged the gap between the two approaches by preserving the urban fabric, while at the same time making challenging and engaging architecture that departs radically from its surroundings. Sitting on a Y shaped plot in the 14th arrondissement, its three separate blocks fit tightly into an existing context of large-scale Parisian urban terraces. At its heart is a thoughtfully conceived courtyard, concealed from the street behind a pair of visually ambiguous façades.

One’s first encounter is with two independent dark grey metal façades. Sandwiched as they are between more conventional Parisian housing, they resemble, from a distance, Herzog and de Meuron’s Schützenmattstrasse building (1992-1993) in Basel. However, differences reveal themselves on closer inspection. The amount of light entering the apartments is controlled by adjusting individual aluminium shutters, fabricated from a corrugated grille based on the form of a curtain. When the building’s occupants push them open, they cantilever out over the pavement. In a closed position, they endow the scheme with a self-contained quality that has disturbed the more traditionally minded neighbourhood residents. Although disgruntled members of the Monts 14 conservation group have petitioned the mayor of Paris to have the shutters on the street fronts painted a lighter colour, a straw poll of local opinion taken recently in the area suggested that this was a minority view.

On rue Jonquoy the frontage is a simple, rather static, upright rectangle, but just around the corner on rue des Suisses it is a clearly different situation. The façade is bent to break the monotony of the row. Consequently the element of folding that is animated by the tenants becomes a dynamic and spatial mediator between the fixed, small-scale folding of the grille and the larger-scale distortion of the surface.
In terms of the individual apartments, one has been allocated to each floor on rue Jonquoy, while on rue des Suisses, one flat out of five slices through the entire depth of the building. After the unwelcoming darkness of the metal street frontages, a surprise awaits those entering the courtyard through a passageway — painted green and overlaid with glass panelling along one wall to produce deep liquid reflections of the passer-by — that pierces the block. The focal point here is a long, low-rise box, a close relation of Herzog and de Meuron’s Apartment Building along a Party Wall (1987-1988) in Basel, overlooked by repeated twin metal façades and a backdrop of exposed brickwork in a raw, behind-the-scenes context. Brick and metal serve as hard-edged foils to the natural vibrancy of the wooden loggia and balconies: larch decking, rolling pine shutters and oak parquet. In addition, the smooth serpentine curve of the shutters, canted slightly, contrasts with the angularity of the metalwork. The natural materials successfully impart a sense of warmth to the space, which is enlivened by a mix of climbing narrow and broad-leaved plants and ornamental trees. Two detached houses in fair-faced grey concrete abut the flanking brick wall along the southwestern perimeter. Their simple cubic forms and pitched roofs relate to a gabled building on the northeastern border that predates Herzog and de Meuron’s intervention.

During daylight hours, the fine aluminium latticework shimmers as it interacts with the reflections on the floor-to-ceiling glazing behind it. Later, as a silvery dusk settles over the area, lustrous tones in the silver birch and concrete complement each other in the dimming light. And as apartments light up, glowing oranges and yellows filter through the grille, which assumes the aspect of a delicate fabric, and allows the eye to probe the domestic tableaux. It is a striking discovery.

The complex also looks and feels good in the rain. In the case of the two-storey houses, water rolls off the roofs and streaks the smooth concrete walls. For a few moments, the courtyard becomes an open-air exhibition of impromptu action paintings.