This apartment in Seoul, designed by Wanderlust Studio, combines K-pop aesthetics with cartoon imagery

If you believe that certain places exist only in Korean cartoons or TV series, you might change your mind at the mere sight of the images of this apartment designed by wanderlust studio in the city of Goyang, within the greater Seoul metropolitan area.


The project is entirely conceived around the two main passions of the owners – collectible dolls and bicycles – resulting in a space where domesticity is far from the dominant dimension, and where references seem to drift beyond the conventional realms of architecture and interior design.
On the contrary, the imagery recalls immediately and brings together the disturbing set designs of Squid Game with the candy-pink and vanilla-yellow universe of a dollhouse (whether it’s Barbie or Squid Game’s eerie Young-hee who lives there is beside the point; the visual tension remains just as striking.).

From the point of view of spatial construction, the idea of a large living area intended as the physical and ideal core of daily life respects a domestic idea one may easily find all across the globe, still estrangement is once again urged by the flashy vintage Moon's Diner sign that stands above the diagonal i kitchen island, returning, on the contrary, the image of a bar counter.
Even the pantry corner, screened by frosted glass windows and pink curtains, takes part in the demystification of domestic intimacy, as does the large double-door fridge recessed into an alcove topped with striped drapes, whose capacity could easily make a restaurant’s cold room envious. All around the eccentric living area come the other rooms, in particular the two bathrooms, where the dense checkerboard tiling is emphasized by the juxtaposition of bold color tones and colorful grouts used both on the flooring and on the walls; then comes a study room with display shelves for the doll collection; and a bicycle room, whith an exercise bike station connected to a screen, is set in direct connection with another study.

While the two souls of the owners are well identified in the different aesthetics, as well as in the color choices (the cycling-themed rooms stand out from the more common pastel palette with a rather fluorescent orange and light blue), some motifs, such as the wavy wooden paneling and the neon and spotlight lighting,  try to reunify the whole space despite the general dichotomy of the entire project, suspended between postmodern play and pop art.