Hotel KHAN / AIN Group

Architects: AIN Group
Area: 2995 m²
Year: 2014
photographs: Yoon Joonwhan, Ryoo Inkeun

Text description provided by the architects. Hotel KHAN is located on the verge of Nambu District Office of Education intersection just over the bridge away from Yeouido where connects to the Seoul-Inchon Highway.

Mixture of scenery is what makes this location interesting. The site is facing mega residential and semi-industrial district on the Northwest and southwest, and having forest view that continued along the canal to the Seoul Marina (yacht deck) just behind the National Assembly.

To the Northeast direction, your eyes meet splendid view over central business district of Yeouido where is the heart of finance, press and business of Seoul.

This unique location of the hotel Khan presents a fascinating place to tourists, businessman, investors and whoever visit to Korea with a thousand faces of the city.

The site sits on the street commercial district zone with its area of 347 sqm, and was having number of difficulties which are uneasy access with its location under the Assembly Road despite facing 35 m road and usable area of 192.52 sqm limited by the aesthetic district.

There was another concern regarding its adjacent residential area which brings us the task of finding ‘spatial relationship’ between hotel and residential district.

The volume of the building shaped by extrude of its usable area to accommodate required space program of the hotel within a rather limited site.

In the process of resolving accessibility, the top left corner of mass was skewed up along the slope of the Assembly Road, and this makes oblique rectangle grid which became ‘parallelogram’ of the hotel Khan. This was a starting point of design.

The oblique grid formed by wrapped around with distorted rectangles takes complete control over the entire skin of the building, and the entrance was made simply followed by this rule.

Having pushed insertion of window onto this slanted grid transforms the building skin into a three-dimensional entity and creates an unusual pattern which is sui generis.

What makes this distinctive pattern more dynamic by enhancing flexures would be the application of aluminum composite panel that changes its skin into various colors in accordance with degrees and amount of sunlight reflects to, and even switches mood of overall mass response to a constantly varying natural light.

Guest room window which opens to the roadside away from the residential area holds the urban scenery of Yeoido and Yeongdeungpo.

Application of polycarbonate panel and glass block in the direction of the residential area enriches interior and exterior view of the building with soft penetration of light while complying with the legal constraint of prospect limitation over the residential area.

Composite theme of interior has written in the same language as the exterior, variation of square grid. Inclined parallelogram, triangles made by this, and waves of square grid making arched-ceiling in three-dimension; those are the major elements of interior space.

Interior furnishing elements such as guest room walls and furniture, ceiling and lighting at public space, front desk, and vestibule has taken a particle of design theme give a signature to each space, not to mention of having consistency with the exterior design.