Moving through the landscape

Since becoming engaged with the way landscape is dealt with in Seoul, retaining walls have remained an elemental idea of this project. What goes hand-in-hand with these walls is movement across them. The gift project has therefore begun to consider ways of traversing the walls as a way of bringing two fractured pieces of land together.

Moments of the staircase, looking towards the small bookhall through the staircase

I was particularly taken by the way the architecture leads visitors around the YoulHwaDang buildings. The staircase which links the two rooms of the bookhall and leads up to the mezzanine level, is incredibly refined and simple, yet seems to add so much to the space. When I first visited, it felt like a religious space, yet also domestic. It’s very homely, but special, it offers a little something extra than other comparable spaces. Also notable is that the vertical levels of each space are higher or lower depending on the importance of the space. This results in a shifting of vertical floor heights across each storey, and several sequences of steps. It makes the building feel bigger and more experiential.

Level changes with stepping retaining walls and steps