The building designed by Madrid/Seoul-based Daniel Valle Architects, collaborating with architect Minah Lee, and located in South Korea, was designed as a sequence of correlative sections constructed along an eighty-meter long structure, in order to work out the most efficient layout, however the team then folded this form to allow it to fit on the site. The first section is a rectangular, one floor, six by eleven meters shape –ideal for storing books. The last one in a three floor, pitched roof, fifteen by seven meters –a section that resembles a living or working typology. The sequence of sections along the project morphs smoothly between the first and last one.
Description of the project by Daniel Valle Architects
Kyomunsa Publisher’snew headquarters in Paju Book City is a hybrid building that combines book storage with working spaces. The project takes the opportunity to propose a common container capable to absorb both programs. Consequently, the building is thought of as a sequence of correlative sections constructed along with an eighty-meter-long structure. The first section is a rectangular, one floor, six by eleven meters shape -“ideal” for storing books- and it is the last one in a three floor, pitched roof, fifteen by seven meters shape –a section that resembles aliving or working typology. The sequence of sections along the project is smoothly morphing between the first and last one.
The second step is to place the new structure on site. As the site has a forty-five-meter squared shape –half the size of the building’s length- the structure had to twist itself in order to fit transforming itself from a rectangular to a “V” shape. This operation allows the possibility to relate exterior and interior spaces as the roof of the storage sections meet the same level as the floor of the sections containing the office program.
