Seoul National University, Gwanak Arboretum Education & Management Building / TAAL Architects

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Architecture as Space, Architecture as Product - There are two major attitudes towards ‘executing architecture’: designing architecture as space and designing architecture as a product. Many architects and studios in the schools emphasize ‘architecture as space’. Taking the proverb, ‘the use of the bowl is in its void’, for example, they tend to denigrate morphism and functionalist architecture in favor of a ‘sense of place and atmosphere that is often difficult to define. However, these two attitudes are not superior, opposite, or incompatible. Those who speak of architecture as space place their weight on history, memory, tradition, context, place, and so on, and those who design architecture as a product concentrate on function, performance, form, material, technology, tectonics, and details. The architecture of the former is usually studied through perspective drawings, and the hand sketches of the architect, and the latter is usually expressed through bird’s-eye views, isometrics, and exploded drawings. Of course, the former is more interested in sensitivity and the artistic, and the latter is more interested in reason, technology, and the scientific.