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Every Little Thing: DUNG GEUL HOUSE

ilsang architects

written by
Song Sungwook
photographed by
Choi Jinbo
materials provided by
ilsang architects
edited by
Han Garam
background

SPACE October 2022 (No. 659)​

 

 

What is daily life? It is an easy but not a simple question. The term ilsangdabansa (ìíßÈÒþÚùÞÀ), which means ¡®everyday life is to drink tea and have a meal¡¯, comes to mind. The dabansa has been used in Buddhism since around the 800s, and it is understood that the daily routines of eating and drinking are no different from those in the realm of enlightenment, so it was named to do its best in little things.

 

DUNG GEUL HOUSE is the work of young architect, ilsang architects, who offer a simple but bold introduction of themselves: ¡®I hope your ideals makes themselves present in everyday life¡¯. The project is a single house in Namwon, which was commissioned by a son for the rest of his parents¡¯ retirement, as his parents and the grandmother reside in the house. Wangjeong-dong, where the project is located, is composed of a residential environment of urban-rural complex type, with low-rise dwellings concentrated alongside a vegetable garden. Unlike the surrounding gable houses, DUNG GEUL HOUSE, which is designed to be a one-story building and finished with a flat roof that gently wraps around the house, sits close to the ground with a low posture. The house deviates from todayʼs familiar urban residential types and brings back the red brick exterior, which was abundant in the 1980s, presenting both a sense of unfamiliarity and familiarity.

A second floor was not planned for DUNG GEUL HOUSE considering the utilisation of the site, but separated the private space from public space and spread out with a yard in between. Taking into account the human scale, the private space is boldly optimised and occupies the land. As a result, the external space, which is of a reasonable size, has an active mutual resilience with the internal space, and includes elements of our daily lives in various ways. The front yard of the living room is a magical garden that allows grandchildren to run around and see their families more often. The courtyard, connected to the kitchen, is an open storage space drenched in sunlight for the jangdokdae (group of jars that contain sauce or paste), and there is a traditional outdoor washbasin that invites one to shower after cultivating the vegetable garden. The pocket garden in the master room, which is planned as a traditional sliding door, expands the bedroom area, which may become cramped, and creates a quiet exterior landscaping. The grandmother¡¯s room is located on the edge open towards the yard so as to survey the full sweep of the landscape. The vegetable garden, which is most difficult place to access, is situated far at the back of the house. It appeared to be a workplace where only the owner would be allowed to produce food.

 

 

 

The fence seems to be a notable architectural design element in this house. It is a device that introduces a line of horizontality and a layer that serves as the front line on the boundary of the dwelling, while at the same time reinforcing a sense of territory around the house in revealing the shape of the longitudinal site. The eye-level fence, which does not present a sense of discomfort, was applied using the same method behind the use of red brick, the main exterior material of the building. As a result, the wall exists as a frame for integrity as an equivalent component in the architectural vocabulary. The method behind the decorative brick pile was alighted upon through the use of a typical running-bond, but the mortar joint, which emphasises the horizontal band, offers a sense of stability. The exposed concrete wall at the entrance was planned to be at a lower level compared to the red brick fence to set the visual overlapping and recognise that it is a transitional space between the outside into the private property. It enters the porch and yard at a slightly higher level through an entry lamp, but this retains a natural flow. The plan for the steps is to build a sense of territory that prevents an external gaze and helps one to look outside from inside along the top of the wall.


The configuration of the main entrance, which exposes bicycle parking lot and the storage area of agricultural equipment to the front, presents a strange experience that makes the porch mistaken for a warehouse door. In fact, the owner goes in and out of the house through the living room window. On the porch, there is an alcove rest area with a handrail that offers assistance to the grandmother, instead of using the space for a storage compartment, and helps her to take off shoes with ease. There are two bathrooms in the house, but there is no bathtub. Instead, there is a curb that looks like it would be in an old public bath in village so that the elderly occupants can sit comfortably and safely and wash themselves. Their space does not conform to the general architectural plan. One disappointing thing from a functional point of view is that if architect built more warehouses in this house, the familyʼs daily life would have been easier.​

 

 

 

A spatial arrangement in accordance with the form of a rectangular site has also been accompanied by a corridor with a long moving line. Although it is not a maze, the deep linear corridor is organised as a journey to a private space, and the appearance of a courtyard and a slit window close to the floor is giving a break from the process of heading to the private realm. The master room and the grandmother¡¯s room at the end have been optimised, but they feel somewhat narrow. The space has been expanded through sliding doors, a corridor with transparent fittings, and the scenic landscape of the courtyard, and yet they still feel tight. There seems to be a daily life that is relative to the ideals pursued by different kinds of housing.

It is known that the owner, who was once a formwork carpenter, participated in the construction of the building of the frame of the house. The process of building the project is also romantic. However, it is regrettable that the ownerʼs pride in building the space of life with his own hands and the architectʼs argument to realise architectural experiments have emerged as eaves that are closed and finished a somewhat superficial texture. Even with the completeness of construction and the functionality of insulation, the roof fails to link the materiality of the red brick, which is the central axis of the project, leaving a small sense of heterogeneity in the project. The experimental attitude based on creativity seems to be ¡®rounded¡¯ by the temptation of ease acquired through experience. It is necessary to avoid from the inertia of repetition and to maintain attentiveness due to anxiety.

 

 

Escaping the more general image of a house, the architect accepted the ideal projected by the owners for their life during retirement. As a result, the DUNG GEUL HOUSE seems to acquire a certain ¡®residential romanticismʼ. Single house is an architectural programme that can open up diverse spaces and forms based on the desires of different clients. It was pleasant to see the ¡®differenceʼ of DUNG GEUL HOUSE at the moment the design of houses is becoming somewhat typified and prescriptive. Life is made up of the daily routine, as in the Buddhist term ilsangdabansa, but it has a different shape according to that lived by each one of us. I hope architecture will attend to and elevate every little thing in our plentiful routines.

 

 

Architect

ilsang architects (Kim Hun, Choi Jeongin)

Design team

Ju Yuna, Park Soyeon, Song Soobeen

Location

Seomun 3-gil, Namwon-si, Jeollabuk-do, Korea

Programme

single house

Site area

450§³

Building area

116.66§³

Gross floor area

108.76§³

Building scope

1F

Parking

1

Height

4.4m

Building to land ratio

25.93%

Floor area ratio

24.17%

Structure

RC

Exterior finishing

brick, Sto Signature

Interior finishing

paint on plaster board

Construction

Eden architects

Design period

Apr. – July 2021

Construction period

Sep. 2021 – Mar. 2022

Client

Seol Jaenam

Landscape design

Jogyeong Sanghoi (Yi Daeyoung)


Kim Hun, Choi Jeongin
Kim Hun and Choi Jeongin founded ilsang architects in Jeonju in 2016. Kim Hun studied architectural design at Jeonbuk National University and practiced at SD Partners Architects Office and nonescale. Choi Jeongin graduated from Sunchon National University and worked at Woori Dongin Architects and SD Partners Architects, and is a Korean architect. He is currently working as a public architect in Jeonju. ilsang architects is working so that architecture can break away from difficult discourses and become a process of sharing and capturing aspects of each individual¡¯s daily life. Samyeonjae won the 2020 Korean Architect Award, Hwadam Byulseo won the 2021 Jeollabukdo Architecture Festival, and Playforest & Playhouse_as you like! won the 2021 Public Building Awards of Korea.
Song Sungwook
Song Sungwook studied at the school of architecture in Ulsan University in Korea and graduated from University of Michigan in the U.S. with a Master of Architecture degree. From 2006 to 2009, he has worked on various architectural projects from interiors to urban scale developments at SOM. After returning to Korea in 2010, he worked at Hanul Architects & Engineering as a chief architect. His projects achieve several awards in design competition such as Department of Physical Education building in Seoul National University, Nexon Headquarters, and Yeoju Museum (received Grand-Prix at Gyeonggi Architectural Culture Awards 2017). At present, he is a professor in the school of architecture at Sunchon National University. Operating MADs (Meta Architecture Design studio), he consistently challenges generally accepted ideas in design and strives to realise cutting-edge design that contends with new possibilities encountered in everyday life.

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