SPACE January 2026 (No. 698)
The Toughness of a Century Etched into the House
This house was built a hundred years ago. Brick walls were raised, a timber floor structure was assembled, and concrete was poured on top to form the slab; this process of stacking walls and forming floors was repeated to complete three levels, then finished with a timber roof. In this way, the house – built along with the history of Ogin-dong – emerged. Until the client couple, who operated mooyongso – a studio and whiskey bar in Seochon – discovered the building, it had changed hands many times over the past hundred years. Some cut columns and added walls; others poured additional concrete on the floor to install heating. As these tough, improvised interventions accumulated, the floors tilted, the ceilings sagged, and the roof shifted slightly. To support these now-unstable three floors, it became necessary to introduce a long cane-like structural member that would pierce through the building. On top of that, a small canopy – an umbrella-like form – was added to secure thermal performance.
Intrusions of External Sensation
The house leans against the rocky escarpment of the city. A long, 12m-by-6m horizontal volume is wedged directly into a retaining wall. As a result, the exposed rock face enters the interiors of the first and second floors, while the third-floor courtyard is enclosed by stone walls taller than the house itself. The village alleyway reaches deep into the third floor, and the natural formation intrudes into the first and second floors. Because elements that should rightfully belong outside have penetrated the interior, the house disrupts and collapses our sensory apprehension of what typically distinguishes interior from exterior.
The stone path on the third floor that enters the courtyard continues from the village alleyway and extends to the inner terrace. At it...
o.heje architecture (Lee Haedeun, Choi Jaepil)
Kim Donggyeong, Lee Jiyoung
Ogin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
single house, neighbourhood living facility
86.3m²
80.43m²
197.97m²
3F
12m
93.1%
229.3%
masonry (brick), timber structure, steel frame
collective steel parts
water paint, wooden flooring, tile
Eun structural engineering
Yigak Construction Co., Ltd.
May 2024 – Feb. 2025
Mar. – Sep. 2025
mooyongso
