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Architects: Snow AIDe
- Area: 224.0 m²
- Year: 2017
- Photographs: Jaeyoon Kim
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Manufacturers: VMZINC, Dunn Edwards, Ewha brick, Stuc-O-flex, Younhyun Trading
Text description provided by the architects. Cheongpyeong belongs to Gapyeong, located in the northeast of Seoul. It is surrounded by mountains and overlooks the Han River. It is famous for its relaxation and leisure facilities in Natural Forest. There is old Cheongpyeong downtown with Daesong-ri, a sightseeing spot, beside it. It is a popular place for tourists in summer. The client says she spent more than 30 years here. Although Cheongpyeong is not her hometown, she married and came here to raise two daughters and a son, and she wanted to rebuild a house that was as old as her son. It was her son, who was bone and raised here, to build a house to live with his mother in the land his father left.
The downtown of Chungpyeong is packed with old buildings. The house where she lived was an old single-story house, which is more than 30 years. The shape of the land was irregular by buying and selling land with my neighbors for a long time. It was doubtful whether the situation would be the same as a site document. So I had to work to check the boundaries of the site first, but because of the dense buildings, I could not do the boundary survey before the demolition, so the design was stopped and I was waiting to demolish the house. The design began again after hearing from the client that he had decided to demolish in February 2017. As a result of surveys, there was not much intrusion of neighboring buildings.
The major direction of the design was to create a quiet and simple space such as margins in a distracted environment by making use of the irregular and narrow land efficiently and making a simple facade that blends with the busy surroundings. The entire program consisted of a parking space and a retail space on the ground floor as residential spaces on the second and third floors. The second floor consists of a kitchen/living space and mother space, and the third floor is for the son space. The most troubling part of the space configuration was how to utilize the narrow backspace due to the irregular shape. Also, the front roads were facing north and had to use backspace for natural light. To make the best use of the site, we put a staircase in the narrow southeastern corner, put a retail space in the longitudinal direction with a parking space beside it.
The residential space is designed to house the living space to the south for natural light, the kitchen and the bedroom to the north, set back from the front road by 2 m to minimize noise and too much light across the street. The stairway connecting the living space to the third floor has open steps to maximize the light entering. The third floor is a space for a single son, and there is a veranda where he can barbecue with family and friends. The facade of the building facing the road was trying to maintain the simplest shape so as not to be awkward to the busy surroundings. Especially, the retail space was placed on the side with one story building side, and the house mass was attached on the opposite side with the third-floor building to be harmonized with the urban environment. On the contrary, the rear of the building became rather diverse and dynamic shape.
The materials used for the exterior were white stucco and black brick, which are the most basic materials, and gray zinc on the roof. These basic materials are compatible with the concept of a house that is faithful to the basic. On the other hand, the interior suggested some rather unusual colors and materials, but the client was willing to accept the floor as a tile, color match with pink tiles and metallic gray charcoal kitchen furniture, and the rooms use faded mint and white color to create a relaxing atmosphere. I wanted to make a building that stood silently like a background for a long time for another 30 years.
