SPACE November 2024 (No. 684)
Landscape of a Farming Village: Blue Barn
① Interview Cho Byoungsoo principal, BCHO Partners × Kim Jeoungeun editor-in-chief
② Interview Kim Seoyeon principal, Blue Barn × Kim Jeoungeun
③ Interview Ko Somi principal, SOMIDANG × Bang Yukyung
View of the stay, Blue Barn ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
A new hill behind the stay ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
① Interview Cho Byoungsoo principal, BCHO Partners × Kim Jeoungeun editor-in-chief
Kim: Why don’t we return to the story of the Blue Barn? This is a project in which the two warehouse buildings that the client’s father, who was a farmer, built himself, were repaired and a new stay home was built. Seen from the street, the metal building (Blue Building), which is now used as a café, and the stay (Stayzip, Zip lounge) are hidden behind the Barn Building, which has retained its original form. I think that’s why it looks more like an ordinary warehouse in the farming village than a building repaired by an architect. The client, Kim Seoyeon, had left her life in Seoul and returned to her hometown, beginning a new life as a farmer and needing to undertake other new work. Therefore, the warehouse, which is precious to her as her childhood playground and which still retains traces of her late father, had to be the basis for her to create a life different to her previous life. What was your first impression when you first saw the warehouse?
Cho: I love those kinds of rustic and shabby looking buildings. The Barn Building especially, which used to be a mill. I had the impression that the client’s father was a very meticulous and industrious person. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but he even had a toolbox built into the walls; when you open the lid, there are tools hanging. He also made doors out of tin plates by nailing them together. These kinds of gestures are agreeable, and I wanted to preserve them all. And then there’s the chimney, you know, the pipe, roughly made of plastic, that used to take the dust out. You could just take it down and get rid of it, but it’s a familiar sight in this village, so I thought I’d leave it there, if for no other reason. I think in the future rural buildings, or the landscape of a farming village, will become very important. People don’t place particular value on rural buildings. In the rural area, for example, a piece of land that is completely empty is worth more than a piece of land with a vacant house. It could be a gem if you repair it well.
Kim: This reminds me of the book you wrote about a poor hillside village based on your own visits and research in the area. You seem very attached to the naturally-formed structure and landscape of the village.
Cho: My father’s hometown was Nakdong-myeon, Sangju, and I grew up seeing a lot of rural neighbourhoods just like this one. If you look at the poor hillside village or the Korean village in general, the spatial structure is formed with a natural hierarchy like a tree branch. And if you look at the villages around Blue Barn, it’s interesting because they’re built in a similar way, but in a different way. Buan is characterised by flat land on reclaimed land leading to the sea. It’s a naturally-occurring neighbourhood without any topographical hierarchy or hierarchy based on the status of the inhabitants (like Yangdong Folk Village, Hahoe Folk Village). As people move around, streets are created and buildings are built next to them. The soil used for the old houses here is also different. It’s mud from the tidal flats, so it’s smooth without being crumbly. There’s a lot to study and discover, but it’s sad that it’s disappearing so quickly. You can see so many buildings in a farming village being demolished and replaced by buildings that are not sensitive to the landscape. But it’s important to preserve and expand upon socio-cultural aspects, such as the landscape and the context of the rural area; in other words, supporting those who have built a relationship with the land, its products, and so on. If architects don’t recognise that value, who will think of it as significant and worthy of research? When you knock down a building, it’s not just the environmental destruction that results, it has implications for the whole village. Slowly, the landscape in which we grew up in disappears.
Installation view of IN THE WIND (2005) by Ko Somi in the Blue Building ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
the Blue Building and Zip lounge seen from the courtyard ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
Kim: It’s interesting that you left the slate roof of the Barn Building intact. Renovations often replace old roofs with new materials, but in this case, you took the unique approach of keeping the old asbestos slate on the roof and walls. Thinking back, you also used galvalume steel plating as a roofing material in your earlier new construction projects, such as the Village of Dancing Fish Land (2000), and the U-shaped Metal Roof House (2002), which faces the neighbouring house. Did you long for a landscape created by pleasant and simple agricultural facilities or harbour the desire to preserve it from then on?
Cho: Prior to thinking about keeping it, I acknowledged that it just looks really nice. Strangely enough, ever since I was in college, I have always liked old and worn-out buildings. Man-made ones, on the other hand, make me break out in a rash. Maybe that’s why I keep going underground. (laugh)
Kim: Buildings made of asbestos are often torn down due to its association with cancer. However, you insisted on leaving the asbestos slate on the roof and walls, saying it’s fine as long no one touches it.
Cho: Asbestos has a very long history in the U.S. The house I remodelled in a historic neighbourhood in Bozeman (2002 – 2003) used asbestos as the exterior material. In the 1950s and 1960s, asbestos was widely used in the U.S. to make tiles that looked like stone because it gave the tiles strength. Asbestos is only dangerous if the powder gets directly into the lungs through the respiratory system, not if you touch it with your hands or wash it off with water. Of course, it has to be coated well so that it doesn’t come off, and only licensed people can remove it, but in normal times we don’t see it as a problem. So, at Blue Barn, we also decided that a thick coat of urethane would make it possible to preserve it. And we also wanted to keep it because it looks good as it ages, with the muddy soil splattering on the bottom of the wall and turning it black.
Barn (now Barn Building) before renovation 창고(현 파란동) ©Blue Barn
Warehouses (now Blue Building) before renovation ©Blue Barn
Kim: Suddenly I feel that a precise and broader understanding of materials is essential to maintaining the innate atmosphere of an old building. Of course, this also includes our original love for the landscape. Meanwhile, in Blue Barn, the experience of extending the path from the dark Barn Building to the bright metal building, and then to the stay home across the yard is quite striking. What kind of sequence were you trying to create here?
Cho: Can I be honest with you? It’s not that great. (laugh) In fact, I didn’t really think about it. Instead, I just tried to be faithful to every single element. Of course, the yard between the metal building and the stay home is the space I’m very fond of. The metal building originally had coloured steel sheets, but they were badly rusted through, so instead of finishing it with different materials, we put up a metal screen to let the light in. Have you tried opening the folding-up windows in the metal building?
Kim: Yes, I have. As I sat on the floor with the windows folded up, I could immediately see the soil and stone walls of the yard, and the golden fields behind the stay home. Just in time, the sky became blue, and above me the fabric that Ko Somi had installed was fluttering in the wind. It felt so great.
Cho: The ceiling of the metal building that is now used as a café is also high, and the expanded metal creates a light and bright atmosphere. We wanted it to open up like that so that it becomes one with the yard. If you go to a house in a rural area, you go through the yard and then you go into the main building or the room on the opposite side. I thought it was too straightforward to go into the room (the stay), so I asked professor Jeon Yongseung, who is in charge of landscape architecture, to build a stone wall and plant bamboo on the side to create a kind of screen, so that it would be psychologically separated. I wanted to acknowledge that the stay home is a completely new feature. I imagined having a fire in the recessed area of the yard when the weather gets cold. When I was a child, people used to have a smudge in the yard and sit around and eat. How can you make anything better than that? In the past, all the kids were free to play in the yard. They all spent time there together through thick and thin. I wanted to create a yard like that for them because having a fire would make it less awkward to be in a small space with strangers.
Interior of the Barn Building, inspired by the sense of original barn’s structure ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
Interior of the Barn Building, inspired by the sense of original barn’s structure ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
Kim: In your work from your time studying abroad, you often use methods such as cutting out sections to reveal traces of the past, or dig into the ground to connect with nature. How did you determine the depth of the excavation in the café and the yard? You went down a little bit, but it seems to have a profoundly powerful resonance.
Cho: I think it’s magical that it only went down to the height of a desk (60 – 70cm). In F1963 (2016) in Busan, I dug out the centre of the buildings that had been added to create a courtyard. When I was designing it, I imagined what it would be like if the ground where the courtyard was could be slightly stepped down. I imagined that it would be so great if hundreds of people could gather under the ground, drinking wine and rice wine and talking to each other. (laugh) I wanted them to step on soil, so that they could feel the ground completely. I thought that if the yard was at the same height as the building, it would still feel like one united mass with the interior space, but if you went down, it would be a different space. So initially I wanted to go down about 70 – 80cm, but the client was worried that it would be uncomfortable, so we compromised and went down about 45cm. It’s a comfortable height for use. On the other hand, in the Jipyoung Guesthouse (2018) on the beach of Geoje Island, we lowered the floor level of the cafeteria by about 70cm. Usually, buildings by the sea try to secure the view of the sea by raising the height of the ground level, but instead, we lowered it. This means that when you sit down, the floor feels comfortable and you can see the sea without seeing surrounding clutter or commotion—it eventually calms you down. I like that sense of space, and that’s why I did it that way, and even the visitors said it looked great. (laugh)
Kim: I heard from Kim Seoyeon, principal of the Blue Barn, that the mood of the village residents has also changed. At first they didn’t like it because it didn’t feel new, but then they were surprised by the number of visitors who came to visit the Blue Barn.
Cho: There are a lot of houses that have been left unoccupied in this village right now. They’re being torn down one by one to make way for new buildings, and it’s a shame because I think it’s taking away from the natural feel of this village. We’re repairing one of the vacant houses near the Blue Barn. Did you get to see the wallpaper that is being stripped? We want to expose the clay wall, put on a new roof to supplement the insulation, and put windows on the outside to preserve the elevations. Just wait and see. It will be a really wonderful space! (laugh) We just helped to repair an old house in Gyeongju. There were two houses. One of them were a big and decent brick house, and the other was a small and dilapidated house in the rural area. They said they were going to renovate the brick house and tear down the dilapidated house. But I said the opposite, that we should tear down the big house and preserve the small, dilapidated house. I explained it to the contractor with passion and worked on it as if we were repairing it. Later on, the neighbours went viral. They realised that ‘Oh, you can repair a house like this.’ People don’t think that these shabby houses can be turned into nice ones. I thought we should promote more cases such as this.
A path through the hill and rice paddies behind the stay. It is paved with concrete pieces taken from the demolition. ©Bang Yukyung
② Interview Kim Seoyeon principal, Blue Barn × Kim Jeoungeun
Kim Jeoungeun: How did you start work on Blue Barn?
Kim Seoyeon: My father and grandfather were both farmers, but my father died suddenly eight years ago, and my two siblings and I came back to my hometown to take over the farming work. After experiencing confusion at this sudden change, I decided to make ‘my father’s barn’ into ‘my barn’ in my second year of farming. I named it Blue Barn after the blue colour of the shed and barn that my father built. I also wanted to raise the inheritance from my father. At first, I was bored by my life the countryside, but I thought, ‘I would rather make a cultural space than just complain,’ and I started it in earnest in 2019. For four years, I planted flowers in rice paddies and participated in a youth activity which took pictures of feast for a birthday decorated with fresh flowers. This provided the opportunity to experiment with how many people would visit. When I was looking for resources to revitalise this space, I discovered Cho Byoungsoo. I didn’t dare to call his office directly, so I wrote a letter. I explained what kind of farming I do, what this space means to me, and how I wanted to continue living here.
Entrance of the Barn Building. Iron doors of the existing barn are reused as sliding doors. ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
Site visit to the Blue Barn. Kim Jeoungeun, Kim Miju, Ko Somi, Kim Seoyeon (from left to right) ©Bang Yukyung
Kim Jeoungeun: Did make any requests for the space?
Kim Seoyeon: My first request was to build a ‘hidden building’. When something new comes into the countryside, it’s always met with resistance. I thought that it should blend in with the village so as to be absorbed smoothly. I’m a rice farmer, so my first priority was to create a space in which people could experience the landscape of rice paddies and rice in a new way. At the same time, I also wanted to enviage transformation to the entire village. After a long discussion with the people in the village, we decluttered chaotic electric wires around Blue Barn and created a village road. We are also preparing to turn vacant lots and empty houses into stay homes. I want to create a village which has the potential to attract visitors by adding interesting spaces one by one to the neighbourhood, just like Naoshima in Japan.
Internal view of strawbale wall in the Stayzip. The wall is finished with glass ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
③ Interview Kim Miju associate project architect, BCHO Partners × Bang Yukyung
Bang YuKyung: The columns of the Blue Building have been duplicated. The trusses on the top are not symmetrical, and the air conditioners are unusually raised.
Kim Miju: We had to reinforce the existing column with additional steel column of the same size to install glass. The trusses were originally asymmetrical. I think one side of the truss was lengthened to install gutters to prevent rainwater from the lower part of the roof, and we preserved those traces. When we installed an air conditioner, we planned to put a flat plate of about half an area under the gable for equipment space, but professor Cho Byoungsoo said it would be interesting to leave it like this, so we exposed it without finishing it. It’s not completely exposed, not completely hidden, but in between.
Asbestos cement slate outside of the Barn Building coated several times to prevent fugitive emission of dust ©Kim Jeoungeun
Bang YuKyung: What is the function of the strawbale wall in stay?
Kim Miju: Cho Byoungsoo suggested that we use rice straw as it’s a rice farming area. Of course, it also works as heat insulation. A research organisation working on rice straw has test reports on its heat insulation properties. At first, we tried to expose the strawbale as it is, but we finished the outside with polycarbonate and the inside with glass considering maintenance problems such as damage and cleaning. In theory, dried and disinfected straw can be used semi-permanently, and it has the function of controlling humidity. It turns red when exposed to sunlight, but it can be replaced.
Looking down at Ko Somi’s artwork installed in the Blue Building ©Bang Yukyung
③ Interview Ko Somi principal, SOMIDANG × Bang Yukyung
Bang Yukyung: How did you become involved this project?
Ko Somi: At first I was asked to design fabrics, such as curtains and bedding for the stay home, by the branding company of the Blue Barn. I was very happy to hear that the space was designed by Cho Byoungsoo, because I felt that his work philosophy was similar to mine. When I was looking for materials that were attuned to my design intentions, to write my thesis on my design concept and attitude towards the project, I often came across the name ‘Cho Byoungsoo’. After reading his book, I felt that he was a person with similar sensitivities to me. I first proposed an installation in the middle of the Blue Building, which was my graduation work from college, and I thought it would go well with the space. Swaying in the wind was an important concept of the work. I wove it on looms. Usually, fabrics should be woven evenly horizontally and vertically, but I wanted to give different emphasis to the lines as I am a Korean painting major. You can find the lines are uneven, and the wavy pattern appears when the fabric is overlapped.
Interior of the Stayzip. Ko Somi made the curtains with hanji thread. ©Bang Yukyung
Installation view of DOOR (2024) by Ko Somi in the Blue Building ©FRITZ HANSEN KOREA
Bang Yukyung: The house-shaped installation in Barn Building is also interesting.
Ko Somi: The installation is in the archive space of the past, present, and future of Blue Barn. There is a technique (dochim) to flatten hanji by beating, among our traditional techniques, and I put hanji paste on linen and then beat it so that the hanji gets stuck between fibers. I dyed it naturally with soil because I wanted to communicate the power of the land and the soil. The fabric itself is also stiff, so it has strength. The advantage of fabric is its flexibility, but its disadvantage is that it is difficult to stand on its own. We usually apply starch to traditional hemp when weaving, and I applied that technique to keep its shape. I crocheted with hanji thread for three months to make curtains in one of the Stayzip. The curtains just barely touch the floor, which is the result of careful calculation of shrinkage and expansion rate of the fiber. Hanji fiber stretches in the humid summer and shrinks in the winter, rising about 2cm from the floor. It varies by climate, so the difference is bigger in Jeju Island than inland places like Buan.
Ko Somi explains IN THE WIND ©Bang Yukyung
