SPACE December 2025 (No. 697)
©Park Heejun
Living Together Again
Herein is the story of a large extended family centred around a strong woman. The client – at once simultaneously a daughter, daughter-in-law, and mother – has taken on the entire responsibilities of planning, coordinating, and communicating the design of a house that will accommodate more than ten people: her own parents, her mother-in-law, the client couple, their three children, and an additional rental unit. Speaking with her felt like talking to a neighbourhood community leader. The process of gathering and reconciling the opinions and registering the needs of each generation resembled the supervision of an alleyway community. Around her, the reality of the house began to take shape.
For three generations to live together again requires a design of careful negotiation—one that addresses individual conditions while also creating an architecture for a new kind of community, one that goes beyond the primitive family structure assumed by modern society. The project reconsiders the meaning of the individual and the family, concepts long taken for granted in the modern era, and seeks forms shaped by the new relationships required of today’s world.
A house may be in private ownership, but the moment it enters a neighbourhood it becomes an integral part of it. I approached the house as a small building that is, at the same time, urban; an aggregation of individuals that is, simultaneously, social.
Like a Folk House
The site is located within a region where mountains and streams, old ...
o.heje architecture (Lee Haedeun, Choi Jaepil)
Kim Donggyeong, Lee Jiyoung
Seocho-gu, Seoul, Korea
multi-household house
177.7m²
106.1m²
199.7m²
3F
11
11.27m
59.7%
112.3%
RC, steel frame
exposed concrete, stucco, galvanised steel sheet
water paint, wooden flooring
Eun structural engineering
Daedo Engineering
Jayeon & Woori contractor
Sep. 2023 – June 2024
Sep. 2024 – June 2025