SPACE-Everyday Triviality: byeollae torajin house

SPACE September 2024 (No. 682)

byeollae torajin house is located in a housing complex in Byeollae New Town, Namyangju-si. As four to five years have passed since the housing complex was built, most of the 50 lots are now occupied, except for a few. When we first visited Byeollae, our initial impression of the site was that it was completely enclosed. The new houses left minimal open space, and the site was surrounded by new houses on all sides. In such an environment, most of all, it was more important to think about how to respond to the layout and windows of the adjacent houses than to look at the surroundings. Since there was not much to see around the site, and the house was facing the dense windows of the neighbouring house, it was necessary to protect the interior of the house from the surroundings, rather than to secure views.

Viewed from the sky, the house is shaped like something halfway between a C and an L. We described this shape as ‘torajin state’, which means sulky, a state of waiting for the other person to offer the olive branch. The house is slightly turning its back on the neighbours, but not completely. The torajin layout protects privacy inside the house as well as providing sunlight from the south. The living room and kitchen are located on the first floor of the house, with access to the back and front madangs, respectively. A spiral staircase connects the three levels of the house on one side of the living room. The staircase was born out of the resistance against deriving the form of a house precisely from the building regulations of Byeollae New Town, and against prescribing the staircase as a passive device for vertical circulation. The feeling of moving through the house along its gentle curves is like walking through the alleys of a small village, evoking a sense of cosiness and curiosity. An ever-changing impression is created by the windows that open onto the madang.

You can see more information on the SPACE No. September (2024).

Architect

bus architects (Park Jihyeon, Cho Seonghak)

Location

Byeollae-dong, Namyangju-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

Programme

single house

Site area

170.1㎡

Building area

84.95㎡

Gross floor area

192.58㎡

Building scope

Parking

Height

11m

Building to land ratio

49.94%

Floor area ratio

113.21%

Structure

Exterior finishing

brick

Interior finishing

paint

Structural engineer

Hangil Structural Engineering

Mechanical and electrical engineer

GM EMC

Construction

choonarchi

Design period

Dec. 2021 – Aug. 2022

Construction period

Oct. 2022 – Aug. 2023

Client

Oh Siyoo

Park Jihyeon, Cho Seonghak

Park Jihyeon and Cho Seonghak graduated from the department of architecture at Soongsil University and worked at MANIFESTO ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN LAB and studio_K_works, respectively. bus architects opened in 2014 and continued work by exploring trivial events in everyday life. bus architects received the Young Architect Award in 2020, Seoul Architecture Award in 2022, Korea Wood Design Awards in 2022 and the Gyeongsangnam-do Architecture Award in 2023.