SPACE December 2023 (No. 673)
The 2024 Junglim Awards pre-forum ‘The Home as an Environment for Coexistence’ ©Kim Sujin
The Junglim Foundation held a pre-forum in the lead up to the 2024 Junglim Awards. The second of three forums, ‘The Home as an Environment for Coexistence’, was held at the Jeonglim Foundation and online (Zoom) on Nov. 8. The theme of the 2024 Junglim Awards is ‘A House for All: Today’s Architecture for Earth’s Tomorrow’. The purpose is to reflect on environmental destruction and our epoch of climate crisis caused by creating human-centred cities and architecture, and to find ways of coexisting with nature and diverse societies. Kim Jihyun (principal, Battmung) and Lee Jiyeon (principal, Animal Liberation Wave) were invited to contribute to discussions on creating an environment for the coexistence and quality of life of the human and the non-human.
Kim Jihyun introduced a youth village in Yeongwol, Gangwon-do, based on permaculture. Permaculture refers to a form of agriculture deemed to be beneficial to both the earth and to humans, and presented seven sectors necessary to create a sustainable culture. Kim Jihyun designed Battmung amongst the cabbage fields of her home town in the aim to realise permaculture and ‘connect nature, human, and generations’, and designed a space for the youth who came together under similar goals. While transforming a factory that was used to pickle cabbage and an abandoned barn where cows were once raised into living spaces, they also collaborated with an architect to build sustainable chicken coops. In the construction process, materials were reused as much as possible to minimise waste, and rice straw and clay were used to reduce heating costs. It is an eco-friendly space built through first-hand experience rather than theory. Battmung continues to experiment with content and space where more young people can gather through permaculture.
The Animal Liberation Movement, led by Lee Jiyeon, is a non-profit organisation that goes beyond advocating for the protection of animals and carries out activities that aim at the total liberation of them from all suffering caused by human beings. At the presentation, she introduced acts of resistance such as rescuing cows from being slaughtered in 2021 and creating a sanctuary on the site of a closed school in Sinwol-ri, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do for cows to live in accordance with their own natural rhythms. Taking their activities as a starting point, Sinwol-ri is currently planning to introduce a new space and the content needed by the village through a design competition hosted by Inje-gun. It is now the time to address the remaining tasks for the liberation of animals and the coexistence of the village through continuous communication between activists, architects, public institutions, residents, and so on.
A diverse audience, including students studying architecture wanting to participate in the Junglim Awards, as well as activists from various movements, and Cho Jaewon (principal, 0_1 Studio), attended the forum. Cho urged the audience not to consider issues such as climate, natural environment, and animal rights as outside architecture, but to actively participate in these concerns and propose solutions.
