ARCHITECTURE THAT BECOMES A BACKGROUND: NAMSAN-DONG COMMUNITY FACILITY

SPACE October 2022 (No. 659)

The Namsan-dong Community Facility is located on the border between a small rural village on the outskirts of Gwangju and a rice paddy field with a rural landscape. The first thing that caught my eye was the lower wall rather than the building, and the roof of a lower height. As I continued to look around the building, this time, it was not the building but the rice field and the surrounding landscape that caught my attention. Standing in the middle yard and thinking about it, I wonder if the architect was trying to erase the landscape. As time passed, what increasingly came to catch my eye was the architecture that had become a background.

A Yard That Bleeds into the Background 

There was a structure that had long been used as a senior community centre, and, on the site adjacent to the road, there is a small old factory in a rural village. In addition to this, there are old houses on the other adjacent lot, and rice fields which spread out from the start of the farm road. The architect tried to reinterpret the meaning and use of the yard, an external space, in an architectural area that will be recast in our rural village. Walking through the countryside, one comes across a familiar looking wall. A wall is an architectural device that creates and sometimes breaks a given boundary. Here, the architect created a yard that responds to the surroundings by creating a looser boundary with a fence. He first planned the area as a fence in the design stage for this reason. A fence of an ambiguous height (the height of two moulds) that can be both a fence and a wall composes three different yards according to the relationship between the main building and the annexe. The yard divided into two in the entrance yard is connected by a roof placed on the fence. It was thought that it would be used as a parking lot or a yard. The middle yard creates an interconnected boundary with a low fence. In the yard, which is one and divided into two, the trees and the monument that used to be here were moved and restored, respectively. A yard of a different character acts as a background, so the architecture, the fence, and the monuments and trees are revealed as architectural elements that can exist in harmony. The courtyard is an intimate space divided into separate areas by the main building. The yard spaces relate to their surroundings in different ways: an open space on one side in the entrance yard; the middle yard, which has a fence that opens toward the rice paddy as sizeable as the yard; and the courtyard, where a wall whose height is adjusted using the existing wall of a detached house. The yards serve as the background to an architecture that encompasses the main building, the annexe, and the surroundings. 

Scenery That Forms a Background 

A small cement plaster factory is typically found in a rural village. The main building and the annexe could have placed a small factory in a position that could have erased it from view in the yard landscape, but it was used as a background to the yard landscape. The small factory at the front gives the impression that it is one with the Namsan-dong Community Facility beyond the wall. The height of the main building also creates a harmonious line and landscape that suits them appropriately. The annexe, separate from the main building, creates a landscape like the grain warehouse that initially existed in a rural village, with rice fields spread out like a plain. In this way, the architect treated the surrounding landscape as the background with an exquisite candour that informs the exterior. In particular, passing through the chipped wall and wide roof plate, entering the middle yard and looking at the surrounding landscape, time seems to have stopped. The adjacent manmade buildings and the landscape of rice paddies created by nature are the backdrops to this space. However, after a while, I realised that the architectural landscape of the building, fence, and roof made by the architect was the background for this town and the surrounding natural areas. When one enters the main building, one will face the same wall as if facing the wall from the outside first. With the same concrete finish as the exterior and grey stucco finish for internal insulation, the dark space inside of one homogeneous tone forms the landscape of the interior space. There is a massive door that embraces variability on the left side. The space that emerges when one opens the colossal door is a response to the community facility programme of the rural village that will be used in various ways. Behind the door, a low window that shows the floor and the lower part of the wall has been constructed, and the wall is used as a background to the landscape. The scenery of the courtyard enters the narrow open space next to the wall in the front section, and the light falling from the ceiling analogises the movement of the vertical space. The height of the concrete was lowered so that the 1.2m of statutory handrail height does not become a background that obstructs the scenery of the window, and the upper part was treated with a minimum round bar to keep it open. The architect also used the placement and size of the windows on the second floor in moderation. The scenery seen from three sides was distributed around the inner stairs so that it was directed from one side to another. In addition, the scenery seen through the window is a background constituting the interior space. 

The Physical Properties That Form the Background 

There are always challenges in a low-budget project. Architects consider various methods by which to contain a budget. In this project, the architect chose to use a single physical property of concrete in various ways. To enhance the background to the existing village landscape, the architect chipped euroformexposed concrete through high-pressure spraying. It works as a background that renders it more harmonious with an ageing small factory and acts as a physical property that enriches the rough look of nature. Under sunlight, the high-pressure spraying of chipped euroform-exposed concrete reacts with light to create a sense of depth in its properties. If it had used ordinary euroformexposed concrete, it would have been a completely different building that works as an object rather than as a background as it is now. The front wall is chipped with concrete to create a more profound sense of depth that is able to respond to light as opposed to high-pressure water chipping. The wall that consists of the boundary around the perimeter is of a sheer volume created by using an EPS insulation pattern mould on the inner surface. Crude concrete has become a material feature of the wall that serves as the background for the yard and landscape. Different physical properties are minimised in the interior so that the interior and exterior work as a single background. I am curious to see how this building will be maintained in the future. I hope it does not lose its current scenic situation due to aftercare such as paint or oil paint repair. I also hope that the Namsan-dong Community Facility, which seems to have existed here in the past, will be well maintained, as it is now, and become a village building that appears to have remained in situ long into the future. I also expect the friendly rural village community will be a place in which to create memories together.