The site, a plot of 25 x 50 meters facing a lake, is located in a private neighborhood in the north area of Greater Buenos Aires. Towards the NW lies the street and the façade and towards the SE the lake and the rear façade. Both the NE and the SW are for mandatory setbacks.
The house is a rectangular concrete prism with a patio.
It is basically composed by four concrete walls in the ground floor, two longitudinal beams in the first floor, and over them four transversal beams, from which one of the slabs hangs.
Diagrama
Planta
Planta
Architecture and structure are the same thing.
Appearance and essence; context and parti; orientation and patio; vegetation and matter.
The house closes itself towards the street and the sides looking for privacy, and opens up towards the lake, taking advantage of the antropic natural-artificial landscape. At the same time, the house opens itself with its patio towards the best orientation, searching for sunlight and cross ventilation.
The patio, its vegetation, humidity and aroma, surrounded by the concrete and its forcefulness, configure a space inside-outside that tries to enrich and contrast the repeated form of suburban habitat of the “country-house”. At the same time, it doesn’t cease to –finally– be that.
People are impressed when you tell them you are an architect. Why shouldn’t they, after all? You share the same title as Frank Lloyd Wright, and that other Frank who builds all those crazy looking buildings. As most of us know from experience, our lives are not that dissimilar from most people living in relative anonymity. How did the architects’ reputation become so acclaimed, yet, so far from what most of us experience?
We haven’t been in an era of architect being a top three (or even top five) career choice in a very long time. You don’t have to take our word for it. Most architects probably wouldn’t have been surprised that even five years ago, Careercast.com listed Architect at #108 on the Top 200 Careers List. This year, it sits at #141–representing a fall of 33 places, and still below such professions as Sewage Plant Operator (#124), Maid (#131), and Janitor (#107). And yes, just like 5 years ago, Architectural Drafter is ranked higher at #74 (a drop from five years ago by only 13).
Can a career in architecture ever be a “top job?” There is some hope, after all, “architect” is also consistently ranked high in the list of ‘most overrated jobs’ by Forbes and Careercast.
We’ve already talked about this. You’re preparing your final project (or thesis project). You’ve gone over everything in your head a thousand times; the presentation to the panel, your project, your model, your memory, your words. You go ahead with it, but think you’ll be lousy. Then you think just the opposite, you will be successful and it will all be worth it. Then everything repeats itself and you want to call it quits. You don’t know when this roller coaster is going to end.
Until the day arrives. You present your project. Explain your ideas. The committee asks you questions. You answer. You realize you know more than you thought you did and that none of the scenarios you imaged over the past year got even close to what really happened in the exam. The committee whisper amongst themselves. The presentation ends and they ask you to leave for a while. Outside you wait an eternity, the minutes crawling slowly. Come in, please. The commission recites a brief introduction and you can’t tell whether you were right or wrong. The commission gets to the point.
You passed! Congratulations, you are now their new colleague and they all congratulate you on your achievement. The joy washes over you despite the fatigue that you’ve dragging around with you. The adrenaline stops pumping. You spend weeks or months taking a much-deserved break. You begin to wonder: Now what?
The university, the institution that molded you into a professional (perhaps even more so than you would have liked), hands you the diploma and now you face the job market for the first time (that is if you haven’t worked before). Before leaving and defining your own markers for personal success (success is no longer measured with grades or academic evaluations), we share 9 lessons to face the world now that you’re an architect.
Let’s start with the first lesson: the university remains a symbol of upward mobility. Many of us are the first architects or even the first college graduates in our families, and being professional is a sure fire way to get a good job, economic stability, and all that (depending on what you studied). If you weren’t born with a desire to study architect or it isn’t your mission in your life, it is likely that this aspect was more important, an idea reinforced by the media, by constantly publishing the rankings of the best-paying careers.
However, it’s a mistake to believe that studying architecture guarantees you a job. A mistake that you don’t notice when you enter the job market (again, only if you’ve never worked before) and then you realize that your first jobs are not what you thought they’d be like in college, or what society thinks an architect is.
But if we understand that college forms skills (check the graduate profile of your school), you can visualize what your advantages are and how to apply them to what you’re looking for. A lesson that goes along with the next point.
Throughout your college career, all your courses rotate around the studio. By default, our value as architects is in how well we design things. In fact, the first fifty architectural references that you can think of will be designers. The alleged diversity in education is false: everyone can focus on what they want, as long as it is the same thing. The very final stage of your studies is a funnel: it doesn’t matter what you did during the rest of your time here, we want you to be able to design something, anything, even if just a box.
This moment is particularly complicated for those interested in landscape (in Spain landscape architects can’t even sign their own projects), urban planning, theory, construction, administration, teaching or anything else other than straight up design.
I have friends with great interest and knowledge in urban planning who had a really hard time with their thesis project. They asked them for “just a box” in order to graduate. The commission did not appreciate “these colored drawings.” My friends thought they’d never get out, but once they got past their thesis projects, their strong will and determination (and of course, the job market) revealed something else.
Mark Wigley, former dean of GASPP says that architecture is “99% hiding 1% displaying”. If those words don’t make sense to you, think back to studio projects. Each architectural design begins with infinite potential layers of information and variables that depend on you, hide them or show them, regulations, technical specialties, budgets, deadlines, sustainability, management, construction, and most importantly, the client. Yes, someone who pays and rightly also has opinions. Because they will. You can count on it.
The university exercises put emphasis on design, they help you develop the technical capabilities we talked about at the beginning. However, in the real world, you should also discuss negotiate and make compromises with the other side of the table. There is no teacher, but there are clients, specialists, and contractors. Do not expect everyone to treat you like a big shot, the rest of the participants feel equally important and that they have something relevant to say and defend.
Yes, you learned to work together at university, but often your group divided the job up like it was the putting together a car on the assembly line of an automobile factory. When the day came to turn it in, you all met up and tried to put it together mechanically.
Teamwork is more than that, and as in the previous point, it means learning to discuss. In addition, in the professional world there are corporate hierarchies and specialties. Some opinions carry more weight than others (of course they do, it’s your boss), but don’t be afraid to put your position out there, defend it and listen to the rest.
The architectural language is special. It’s not only special because of the technical concepts that you’ve adopted, but also because of all those adverbs, nouns and verbs that are seemingly profound and poignant but devoid of all meaning. Why do we use them? Well your professors really liked them and they bring up fond memories of architecture school. However, in the eyes of society it is one of the reasons why our profession isn’t taken seriously. We talk funny.
Talking funny is one thing. Another is having a rich, broad and complex language. Saying nothing at all is something else entirely. Examples? Attributing anthropomorphic properties to your project as if it were a pokémon is totally bizarre. Yes, it is a subjective and personal reading on your work, but it is not clear, or directly or convincing. You can put it another way.
Don’t expect someone to understand that a piece “wishes to rest on a hill and look out over society” or that its concept is “a circumstantial dynamic of urban retreat.” You aren’t saying anything. We talked about this a while ago and a selection of “150 weird words that only architects use.” Some advice? Save the list somewhere and try to eliminate or replace them.
Don’t get frustrated when you see that the official rate scale for architects doesn’t match your own experience. Don’t get upset with your school or your dean. For this, there are two answers, the long one and the short one.
Let’s go with the short answer: this goes beyond architecture. In a market of supply and demand, the oversupply of architects makes for cheaper labor.
Before we had Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Now there’s Bjarke Ingels. Whether we like it or not, the most well-known architects are also those who do the most self-promoting. Instead of waiting for clients, they offer proposals. They established connections with other fields. They rejected the status quo of the occupation and breakthrough. They did it their way. They published, presented, and discussed. They were convinced of their principles and pushed to make them a reality.
Pro tip: It’s not enough to have the best ideas if you can’t get them across. If our profession is an enrichment to society and we’re convinced that we can contribute, then you should be able to communicate. Don’t expect that, after working quietly for decades, somebody is going to show up on your doorstep holding the Pritzker (or whatever award that you care about the most).
The best (and strongest) ideas are dispersed, spread, discussed, reformulated, expanded and compared.
8. Is the history of architecture a social construct or “Why don’t we know more prominent women architects?”
I am of the opinion that history is a social construct. Its construction is the story of people who write it, schools that influence it, and institutions that validate it. In the case of architecture, it is quite clear. Don’t you find it strange that there is such little recognition of women in our discipline? Cases of injustice are numerous and, fortunately, we are uncovering more and more sexism from the twentieth century. Unfortunately, that vision of architecture is what was then passed on to generations of students. Furthermore, this also lead us to look at ethnic minorities. We are not just talking about history because the wage gap remains scandalous.
The marginalization of Scott Brown in connection to the 1991 Pritzker award of her husband, Robert Venturi. Or the constant prosecution of Zaha Hadid, even when she was already a shining star in the architect world. In the daily lives of thousands of architects, injustice knows no cultural or economic barriers, such as the 19 cases rescued by the New York Times on daily inequality.
How many women have individually won the Pritzker? One, Zaha. How many Latinos? Four. Africans? Zero. Are there no architects of this magnitude or are they invisible? In the end, architecture (and its history) is a long reading, it is assumed knowledge to be the official version and it is then taught it to us. We must avoid repeating that mistake. It’s time to confront this history, expand it, make it more complex and diverse.
9. You don’t know anything, but you will learn everything along the way.
We left university thinking that we don’t know anything. We went to an all-you-can-eat buffet and chose a little of everything, but at the end of the meal, we were still not satisfied. This is one of the major frustrations of getting a degree it inhibits us from applying for new jobs and positions, or to try new things.
Don’t worry, because you will learn everything along the way. Can’t you fill out the required city forms? Surely you have a teacher or a friend who already knows how. Contact them. Don’t you know how to construct a foundation on wet ground? Research it, speak to somebody, review old plans, ask someone who already has been working for a while. There is always someone who’s already done it. It’s not the end of the world.
You need to try, fail, figure out, and accomplish.
Dutch firm de Architekten Cie. have revealed their design for the Galileo Reference Centre, a new data collection center for the Galileo satellite system in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Primarily housing office space and computer rooms, the center has been designed as a highly efficient and resilient building which can be adapted into the future.
Courtesy of de Architekten Cie.
The structurally lightweight building sits adjacent to a small bay of sand dunes in the Noordwijk Space Business Park. Wildlife and nature are brought into the building through green terraces aligned to the main functional areas, and the connection between indoor and outdoor is maintained through a “social lobby” which opens up the ground floor. Also functioning as the main circulatory space, the lobby distributes users throughout the building and provides the functional services for the first floor.
Courtesy of de Architekten Cie.
The life-cycle of the building was a driving factor of the design, Primarily comprised of wood, a replenishable resource, the building utilizes prefabricated and composite structures easily disassembled and reassembled. The benefits of using prefabrication, and specifically the pine of the main structure, first floor and roof are threefold. Firstly, the structure is light enough to rest upon the sand; secondly, the structural columns are able to double as wooden partition elements; and lastly, the modular design allows maximum reduction of waste.
Courtesy of de Architekten Cie.
The facade features a singular repeated component in three different transparencies, from fully opaque to fully transparent. This provides necessary permeability and enclosure in required areas of the building. The future-proofing of the building is exhibited here again, as the interchangeability of the panels will allow the facade to be adapted to internal configuration changes as the building’s program changes.
Courtesy of de Architekten Cie.
Alongside the minimization of material wastage, the building is designed to be highly energy conscious. A series of measurements determined that it will be 35% more efficient than currently required by Dutch building regulations. Construction of the building has been accelerated due to the necessity of its completion and is due to be completed in July 2017.
A modular living system by the Wood Program at Aalto University
As the Nordic countries have recently been experiencing fluctuations in population, it has become apparent that there is a severe shortage of temporary housing solutions for students, asylum seekers, displaced residents, and others with similar short-term needs.
In urban and sub-urban contexts, the pre-fabricated modules can be transported and combined into various configurations to fit numerous sites. Rather than the typical approach of autonomous, deployable containers, Kokoon allows for habitable space that can expand both vertically and horizontally. Additionally, simple approaches to storage, lighting, and spatial division ensure that the interiors are both practical and dignified.
Kokoon is a design / build project from the 2015-2016 Wood Program at Aalto University School of Arts, Design, and Architecture. It was constructed to address the current housing situation in Finland. The three prototype units were finished in Otaniemi and assembled on-site in one day. They are intended to be displayed and used in various locations around Finland over the coming years.
The Exposition’s poster, designed by Robert Bonfils. ImageCourtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The end of the First World War did not mark the end of struggle in Europe. France, as the primary location of the conflict’s Western Front, suffered heavy losses in both manpower and industrial productivity; the resulting economic instability would plague the country well into the 1920s.[1] It was in the midst of these uncertain times that the French would signal their intention to look not to their recent troubled past, but to a brighter and more optimistic future. This signal came in the form of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Decorative Arts and Modern Industries) of 1925 – a landmark exhibition which both gave rise to a new international style and, ultimately, provided its name: Art Deco.
via Wikimedia
World’s Fairs were not necessarily new in Europe. Since 1851’s seminal Great Exhibition in London’s Crystal Palace, a multitude of similar fairs drew millions of visitors. This tradition was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of World War One, an interruption that would last until the British Empire Exhibition of 1924.[2] Planning for the International Exposition actually began in 1911, but debate over exhibitor criteria and, eventually, the war would delay the opening until April of 1925.[3]
The Exposition, which occupied both banks of the Seine, was tied together by the Pont Alexandre III, itself built for a previous World’s Fair. Imagevia Wikimedia
The Exposition occupied 57 acres in central Paris, stretching from the Esplanade des Invalides across the Pont Alexandre III to the entrances of the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.[4] Two-thirds of the allotted land was set aside for various French pavilions; the rest was made available to the other participating nations, most of which were European. Germany was notably unrepresented, as lingering tensions from the war meant they were not invited to join the Exposition until it was too late to organize a national pavilion. The United States was also absent, due to a lack of designers whose work met the requirements laid out for display submissions.[5]
The Dutch Pavilion was an example of Expressionist architecture in a largely Moderne fair. ImageCourtesy of the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut
It was these requirements that would set the 1925 Exposition apart from its forebears. The stipulation that ultimately disqualified American participation was that no design could be based on historical styles – everything was required to be exclusively modern. Though it was hoped that the Exposition would reflect the life of the common person, most products displayed were designer goods aimed at the wealthy elite.[6]
As a result of these same requirements, a variety of contemporary architectural styles were utilized in the Exposition’s many pavilions. The pavilion for the nascent Soviet Union, designed by Konstantin Melnikov, was an angular red and white monument to Russian Constructivism realized in wood and glass. The Dutch pavilion, designed by J.F. Staal, was an Expressionist building composed of red brick. Victor Horta’s design for the Belgian pavilion, meanwhile, eschewed the florid Art Nouveau style for which he was known in favor of a stepped, rectilinear structure more in line with the majority of the French pavilions.[7]
Horta’s Belgian Pavilion was a radical departure from his typically curvilinear Art Nouveau style. Imagevia Wikimedia
Despite the presence of these alternative styles, and even a few historicist entries that defied the fair’s guidelines, it was French art moderne that would feature most prominently at the Exposition. Though it was already popular in France by 1925, the Exposition was the first time that this style would be introduced to an international audience. The global influence of the fair was unmistakable in the following decades; in 1966, another Parisian exhibition would rename the style Art Deco in honor of the Exposition that had popularized it.[8]
The sunburst crowning the entrance to the Galeries Lafayette pavilion is a typical element of Art Deco decoration. Imagevia Wikimedia
Art Deco, despite its innate glorification of—and preoccupation with—modernity, was not Modernist in the strict definition of the term. It was not founded upon principles of rationalist engineering or scientific efficiency, instead using motifs and symbols of modernity as a decorative statement. This differentiated it not only from foreign schools like Constructivism and the Bauhaus, but even from the International Style supported by France’s own Le Corbusier.[9] This difference was readily apparent in Le Corbusier’s L’Esprit Nouveau Pavilion, a model apartment that demonstrated his ruthlessly efficient ‘machine à habiter’ without the stylization which defined Art Deco.[10]
The Bon Marché’s pavilion made use of stepped setbacks, another motif frequently seen in Art Deco buildings. Imagevia Wikimedia
Due to its ornamental nature, it is perhaps unsurprising that the most prominent Art Deco structures at the Exposition were not those of architects or countries, but of French businesses and decorative artists. Several notable Parisian department stores—including the Galeries Lafayette, Le Bon Marché, and Le Printemps—set up elaborate pavilions intended to lure attendees in to admire rooms furnished and decorated with consumer products. The exterior façades of these pavilions utilized several common Art Deco motifs, including stylized floral elements, stepped forms, sunbursts, and zigzags. Representatives from various applied and decorative arts employed similar tactics, from book publishers to famed glassmaker René Lalique; the latter had also designed a massive tiered, obelisk Fontaine Lumineuse (Luminous Fountain) with molded-glass caryatids that stood at the center of a neighboring square.[11]
The Luminous Fountain by Lalique was one of the Exposition’s main centerpieces. Imagevia Wikimedia
The most acclaimed pavilion at the Exposition was the showcase for an individual artist, furniture designer Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann. Designed by Pierre Patout, the Hôtel d’un Collectionneur (House for an Art Collector) consisted of a suite of elegantly-decorated rooms laid out around an ovular Grand Salon at the center. These opulent interiors were contained in a stepped, largely rectilinear building decorated with classical bas-reliefs depicting dancers. Critics admired the elegant modernization of traditional forms which, when paired with the luxurious interiors, ultimately earned the hôtel a reputation as one of the greatest achievements of French Art Deco.[12,13]
The Hôtel d’un Collectionneur was a highlight not just of the Exposition, but of French Art Deco in its entirety. Imagevia paris-pepites.fr
During its six month run, the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs attracted roughly sixteen million visitors, creating massive international demand for the style to which it ultimately lent its name. In accordance with the organizer’s aims, the Exposition also established France as the arbiter of taste and fashion in the interwar era; Paris itself was put on display as the world’s most fashionable city.[14] But the ramifications of the Exposition Internationale would spread far beyond Paris. Though several similar world’s fairs would follow in subsequent years (including two more in Paris in 1931 and 1937), none would have such a resounding impact as the one which took place in 1925. Time would eventually move past the frenzy of Art Deco that followed the 1925 Exposition, giving way to Modernism in the wake of the Second World War – but no single event would ever have such a profound effect on global design sensibilities ever again.[15]
Plan drawing of the Hôtel d’un Collectionneur. Imagevia maximeold.net
References [1] Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “France”, accessed August 09, 2016, [access]. [2] Rydell, Robert W. World of Fairs: The Century-of-progress Expositions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993. p3. [3] Raizman, David Seth. History of Modern Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004. p155. [4] Poulin, Richard. Graphic Design and Architecture, a 20th Century History. Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2012. p86. [5] Windover, Michael. Art Deco: A Mode of Mobility. Québec: Presses De L’Université Du Québec, 2012. p120. [6] Raizman, p155. [7] Bayer, Patricia. Art Deco Architecture: Design, Decoration, and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1992. p38-40. [8] Bayer, p12-37. [9] Pile, John F. A History of Interior Design. New York: Wiley, 2000. p349.| [10] Bayer, p21-22. [11] Bayer, p38-46. [12] “Art Deco: The 1925 Paris Exhibition.” Victoria and Albert Museum. Accessed August 9, 2016. [access]. [13] Bayer, p39. [14] “Art Deco: The 1925 Paris Exhibition.” [15] Bayer, p37-38.
Photographs: Courtesy of The Victoria and Albert Museum, via Wikimedia, via paris-pepites.fr, via maximeold.net, Courtesy of the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut
“ondo” is a house with a cafe, having 3 floors, a basement and a roof terrace. On the north side of the plot, the house faces one of the most famous parks in Tokyo. Since the plot is only 38 square meters, it was very important to pay attention to characteristic of the plot which dramatically changes with its vertical level.
The first floor, the café, is raised from ground level by 1.1 meter to be aligned with the park level to have pleasant atmosphere of the park and to provide visibility from the park. It is also advantage to make the basement floor with less excavation. On the second floor, a public lavatory and a transformer station come into sight. So the floor has fewer windows from outside but has two skylights. At the top floor level, by building volume regulation, a volume of the south side house has setback. So the floor can have both north and south views. On the rooftop, you can feel as if you were at the tree top.
As a result, the house consists of two parts. One is “horizontal tube” penetrating from park side to the other side. The part is open to the public. The other is the rest of the volume, just like an ants’ nest, which is, in contrast, totally private space living with skylights.
A couple, occupants of the house, had just a few requests. They want to have a café and to maximize the potential of the plot. Now they enjoy moving up and down between the two parts depending on their feeling etc. Rooms and functions are not one-to-one correspondence in the house.
From the architect. 52 cubic wood – produces carbohydrate (glucose) from carbon dioxide CO2 (which equates to 260.000km by car) with the help of the sun. Additionally oxygen is released in the form of breathable air for 100 years per person. This happens interference-free without waste and emissions, it‘s quiet and fully automatic. This is the beauty of the factory called „The forest“.
52 cubic wood – to form and to construct a room with the quality of „Give room – Leave space“. With the basic understanding that „ the material is innocent, but never is the architect“. This responsibillity was taken on by JOSEP in cooperation with Atelier Gerhard Haumer. A star shaped ground plot with a clear sight-axis underlines the project.
52 cubic wood – processed by carpenters and joiners who made sketches and thoughts a reality. In order to achieve architectural quality in the project, a lot of craftsmanship and thinking outside the norm was required.
Section
52 cubic wood – create a 125m² office on two levels for a client [nursery garden] who plants, cuts, and fosters, so we can rejoice on nature and grow back 52m³ wood.
52 cubic wood – covered half with a mirrored facade. This sensual, atmospheric perception makes explanation unnecessary. Although it’s obvious to create a context between space and nature.
Floor Plan
Floor Plan
52 cubic wood – that needs our peception, decision, utilisation, action and culture52 cubic wood – as architecture
From the architect. Simple containers made of quality materials are the easiest to use. You don’t grow tired of them, and they bring out the best in whatever is inside. We think of living spaces as containers that bring out the best in your family and your life.
The project began with a request from a couple that owns a beauty salon we designed 15 years ago. The salon still feels modern today, and shows how well the owners have taken care of it.
Plan 1
When we visited their house, there was nothing unnecessary or out of place. DIY metal hardware made it possible to change the way they use the space to match their changing lifestyle. A single wild flower their child had picked stood in a simple vase. We felt they wanted a house to enhance the free and pleasant nature of their lives.
The property is located in a quiet residential area of Mikage, a nice contrast to their salon in downtown Rokko. It sits two meters above the street that forms its southern border, protecting the family’s privacy from the eyes of passersby below. A forested area on a cliff, spared from development, is visible to the south. The view from the house takes full advantage of the borrowed scenery.
Nature is present in the house. South-facing windows lead to outdoor spaces, like deep tunnels that create a serene space by obscuring neighboring houses while framing the borrowed scenery. Exposed structural elements in equal pitch showcase the wood’s natural character, while straddling and connecting inside and outside.
The custom-ordered trestle table on the first floor can be diassasembled and stored. The legs are interchangeable, so it can be a chabudai (Japanese-style low table), or taken up to the enclosed terrace and surrounded with furniture for lounging. The space is flexible. The owners will likely continue to change their DIY furniture as their life changes. We hope this space will be a container that accomodates the family’s unfettered and free lifestyle for many years to come.
From the architect. The project is located at the edge of the campus where the Baebong Mountain starts in Seoul, Korea. The project is enclosed by small pond and outdoor stage, in the front, and Baebong Mountain, in the back, which make the location a great spot to overlook the whole campus of University of Seoul. Before the project, the location was used for recycling disposal plant. The project was initiated with the mindset of minimizing the damage to the mountain and green space of the city so that the planning was limited within the boundary of existing facility.
The concert hall is placed on the top floor, planned to have the best scenic view as well as its function as a concert hall, to meet the importance within the department of music, lecture and rehearsing rooms were placed in the lower volume of the building. An atrium is placed in the center of the bottom volume to empty the volume through to introduce the view of Baebong Mountain into the space. The terraced atrium is the leading space towards the concert hall. The atrium space also acts as a buffer zone that separates the rehearsing space from the other functions of the project. Curved walls of the atrium help the visitors to readily reach into different levels.
The colonnade of the front and each sides of the concert hall is reflecting the image of oak trees in Baebong Mountain so that the visitors can indirectly experience the forest inside. The material of the exterior was initially to be rough textured concrete mimicking the patterns of pine boards, yet it was changed to black stone and oxidized stainless steel plates to perceive ease of construction.
Sig Nordal 