The project, conceived by Cho and Partners, is developed from a maximum building envelope defined by urban planning regulations, into which progressive shifts are introduced across the various floors. From the north, the building appears as a continuous plane, while from the south, it reveals itself as a composition of stepped volumes.
The setbacks and shifts between floors create open-air surfaces linked to each commercial space. In this way, the architectural organization leverages the building’s section to integrate outdoor areas and establish a dynamic relationship between the interior spaces and the urban landscape.
Yeonnam Square by Cho and Partners. Photograph by Yousub Song.
Project description by Cho and Partners
For a long time Yeonnam-dong was a quiet residential neighbourhood. When the Gyeongui railway line was moved underground and a linear park took its place, the streets began to change. The building stands between the Gyeongui Line Forest Park and Dongjin Market, in an alley where old houses, shops converted from those houses and new buildings sit side by side.
The alley is narrow and winding. In a narrow street a building feels larger than it is, and the closer one comes, the more its folded faces are noticed; walking in, the same building keeps changing. The site sits exactly where the alley turns a corner. Approached from the park to the south, its front and side are fully exposed; approached from the market to the north, it is hidden behind the building in front. We took this difference as the starting point of the design.
Within the maximum volume allowed by the building code, the floors at the turning corner are pushed out by different amounts. Seen from the north, the building reads as a single flat face; seen from the south, it becomes a stack of shifted volumes.
One shop per floor. The small shops once scattered along the alley are stacked one above another into a single building. Because the floors are offset, each level gains its own outdoor space, and from each of them the neighbourhood is seen in a different direction.
