SPACE April 2026 (No. 701)
신도리 워케이션 오피스(2024) 콜라주
What Is Explored Through Architecture
What does an architect explore? This question is always close to me. The Post-Impressionist painter Cézanne explored the essence of painting through his countless still lifes. Of the many elements contemplated in a painting – light and shadow, perspective, composition, and contour – he revealed what could remain and what could be omitted in order to express the existence of objects truthfully. My attitude towards architecture can be said to be similar. I explore what can remain and what can be omitted in order to be truthful to the forms of life that architecture constructs. This does not mean architectural minimalism. Rather than pursuing ‘what must be done minimally’, I aim for ‘what ought to be done’. I believe this is both the work and the primary ethical choice of the architect.
When Minimal Design Is Required
Offices are an architectural typology that tend to require less intervention from the architect. While in public or commercial architecture the architectural expression is permitted to assert its presence and is even often emphasised, offices, whose partitions are not fixed and are premised on change, tend to take universal and neutral space as their main theme.
In cases such as offices, where the architect’s intervention is required only minimally, it becomes possible to more explore what the true task given to the architect is with greater clarity. Within the limited possibilities given to the architect, how can one devise an ethics, discipline, and aesthetics of architecture?
The offices presented here were each designed under different site conditions and requirements. Confronting both the universal characteristics of the office typology and the specific conditions given to each project, I hope these works serve as examples of how architecture can establish an order in space while generating difference.
신도리 워케이션 오피스 스케치
Constructing Spatial Systems Through Structure and Revealing Them Through Form
The spatial layout of offices changes constantly. Today’s companies frequently reorganise their business divisions and internal structures. This is why many offices adopt large open floor plans. In designing offices, I do not stop at addressing the general requirements of efficient planning and flexible space. Instead, I explore ways of aligning the organisation of interior space with the structural system and to integrate that structural system with the external form. Through this process, the first stage of the task given to the architect can be completed.
At the ZYX Technol...
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Kim Seunghoy
Kim Seunghoy founded KYWC Architects in 1995 and worked as Professor at Seoul National University. His major projects are Ewoo School, Munhakdongne Publishers, Yaein Church Daniel School, Lotte Buyeo Resort, etc. He was awarded Kim Swoo Geun Prize, KIA Award, Seoul Architecture Award, LEEWOON Award, and the Korean Architecture Award. He wrote the book including Space that Builds Time, Ewoo School Architecture>/i>, HOUSE, Searching for Life-Forms.
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