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Belgian Fashion wears Green in Seoul
Sinsa-dong, the downtown Gangnam District of Seoul, is
transforming today from quiet residential houses to trendy
restaurants and upscale boutiques. One of the new
neighbors is a Belgian fashion designer, Ann
Demeulemeester, who opened her first Korean shop last
year near Dosan Street. The three story building with
subterranean floor is designed by Minsuk Cho (Mass
Studies).
The native Korean architect studied and built his
professional experience in New York and the Netherlands
working for Kolatan/MacDonald Studio, Polshek and
Partners and OMA. He established Cho Slade Architecture
in 1998 in New York with James Slade and in 2003, he
came back to Korea to open his own firm, Mass Studies.
Then he began his investigation to understand his new
home, Seoul, where “intensely over-populated urban
conditions” and “architecture in the context of mass
production” have become norm. However, Cho bravely
incorporated these rather harsh urban surroundings and
transformed into a new urban form such as the Ann
Demeulemeester Shop.
Ann Demeulemeester Shop sits on the first floor of an
organically shaped building covered in green with an Indian
restaurant above and a multi-shop in the basement. The
concept of the architecture “Synthetic Organism of Nature
and Artificiality” is presented through continuous plantation
from exterior to interior combined with concrete. Inside
the shop, dark brown exposed concrete wraps the ceiling
and the columns in organic shapes, building a soft round
shell above the wooden floor, the only flat linear plane of
the space. The round columns support the structure and in
between the columns are arched glass openings at full
height allowing maximum exposure from outside. Behind
the large windows, bamboo trees are planted creating an
illusion of forest. Just a few steps away from the alley of
busy Gangnam district, the Avant-Garde Belgian design
awaits in the forest of bamboo.
There are three different types of plants used in this
architecture; bamboo around the windows, Pachysandra on
façade, and moss in the basement. The living façade is
achieved by planting a geotexile with an herbaceous
perennial, Pachysandra, an evergreen groundcover. The
stairway leading to the basement is narrow and painted in
white at the entrance and towards the basement,
“gradually enlarges to become another organic shape”, and
the walls change to “moss-covered subterranean cave.”
The moss keeps the color of green, however changes the
texture as if “to allude to moist underground caves.”
The stairway from the basement continues to the second
floor. The restaurant space is painted in white and holds
linear round shaped windows with bamboo trees planted
outside carrying first floor’s natural atmosphere. The
restaurant can be divided into five spaces; second floor,
top level, three-step-level floor between the second and
top level, a hidden terrace at the rear of the top level, and
a rooftop space accessed by stairs from the top level. Each
space has its spatial characteristic, and they are intimately
connected inside and outside.
This bold attempt to combine natural and artificial
elements complementing the site’s surroundings has
achieved a successful result. Last month, at the 26th Seoul
Metropolitan City Architecture Award, Ann
Demeulemeester received the third prize in Non-Residence
category.
References
“Ann Demeulemeester Shop”. Mass Studies.
Space. December, 2007.
Credits
Photography by Yong-Kwan Kim.
Images and information by Mass Studies.
