[ESSAY] Here and Now: Questioning Through Architecture | Choi Moongyu + Ga.A Architects

SPACE September 2026 (No. 706)

 

 

The Beginning of Architecture: Questioning the Familiar​ 

The term ‘National Housing Size Standard’ (archetypal Korean apartment layout) has appeared frequently across various media lately. For a long time, I wondered when the term first came into use. Apparently, it was in 1973. Although it is difficult to trace the exact decision-making process, the generally accepted explanation is that the average household at the time consisted of five people, and the standard was set as the minimum amount of space required for a married couple and their three children. It has remained in use ever since. If we separate the Korean term into its three components – ‘national’, ‘housing’, and ‘size’ – it can be read as ‘the size of the home in which a citizen of the Republic of Korea ought to live’. From there, questions begin to pour out. According to The Age of Inevitable Solitude (2026) by Kim Suyoung (Professor, Seoul National University), single-person households accounted for 42% of all households in Korea as of 2024. If, in 1973, it was taken for granted that adults would marry and live with two or three children, are the 42% of people who now live alone citizens or not? What about lives centred around non-blood-relation communities without legal marriage, or around companion animals? Why is a kitchen still considered essential in an apartment where people no longer cook or even eat at home? ‘Do differences in room size ultimately create inequality among family members?’ Questions continue to emerge from something as familiar as the conventional apartment plan. The problem is that such questions have largely been buried in contemporary architectural discourse, while novelty in a building’s appearance and spatial composition has taken centre stage. Instead of confronting new realities that the National Housing Size Standard can no longer accommodate, attention is concentrated on three-bay and four-bay layouts, exterior materials, and kitchen appliance design, while we close our eyes to the more fundamental question: why do we need a living room and kitchen, three bedrooms of different sizes, and two bathrooms?

 

 

 

 

 

Returning to the National Housing Size Standard, another question arises: why is the size of a dwelling measured not in terms of...

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