A school has always been perceived as a space dedicated to educational activities for the benefit of students. However, the recent phenomenon of a declining number of students has necessitated a more creative approach to the improvement of the current educational infrastructure. With regards to this, the school educational infrastructure is currently looking for ways it can transform various educational spaces into spaces for the benefit of the region. The eastern building of Banghak Middle School was the result of a design competition project, raised to remodel the leisure space of an educational facility and change it into a cultural and recreational space for students and local residents.

The space is not climate-controlled and so allows visitors to feel the water. Most people in the town don’t know where their water comes from. After a time, the patina of the building will also reveal the passage of water—its pattern visible through the rough façade.

The tree structure of the house is composed entirely of wooden joinery. The construction method, without using additive fasteners such as nails, is not only intended as a means of following a traditional methodology, but to show the sheer strength of engineered timber as a structural element.

An individual living in a metropolitan setting might have a certain sense of home—an intimate, personal, and separate realm. Particularly, within the gated communities of Korea, most residents tend to focus on the interior of their house rather than the outside—in which communal spaces exist and in which their neighbors reside. In this day and age, can we still share our everyday experience with our neighbours? Taking this as their design problem, EMA Architects & Associates has organised physical spaces that embrace residential communities. The architect has played a role that goes beyond those of a designer, creating discussions with regard to communal spaces, and also managing conflicts that may arise in the process of participatory design. Architecture has also become a part of a more progressive model that forms social connections.