HouseVariety: Pixel House / By Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Mass Studies + Slade Architecture
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

This house is for a young family with two children. This family is very interested in the larger community and plans on sharing their exterior spaces with the community.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

They intend to create a day care for neighborhood children. In addition to being a house this structure will end up also functioning as a community center. The site is perfectly matched with the client's intentions; it is the last house in a row of houses.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

It is the point of rupture between the clearly defined front and back yard spaces; the point at which the continuous façade that defines these outdoor spaces ends or turns. Because of this, the public and private territories are not as clear on this site as on other sites within the row.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

While the public and private territories are ambiguous, the end condition is the point at which the relationship between the building and the landscape is clearest. The entire row of houses can be read as an object/ field relationship between building and landscape. This opposition between formal clarity and territorial ambiguity requires a very different strategy than with the infill condition, particularly because the client is interested in breaking down the public private opposition.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

We chose to break the row into fragments rather than just extending the "wall" of houses to the end of the site, by placing the main house at the western end of the site. This allows a bleeding between the front and back spaces and creates an outdoor space open to the street within the depth of the row house.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

The relationship between the landscape and the building is also questioned because the main house volume is removed from the row and also softened and rounded to be somewhere between the rigid orthogonal geometry of the row and the smooth contours of the landscape. Is it a rock or a building?

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

At a micro scale this tension between the contoured natural condition and the orthogonal master plan condition is further developed in the choice of materials. By using a simple orthogonal brick, in an orthogonal order and allowing the bricks to slide out of plane to create the curved wall, the tension between orthogonal and contoured form is revealed. This tectonic tension is parallel to the tension that exists between the building and the row of houses adjacent to it and between the master plan massing and the hilly landscape.

Photo © Courtesy of Yong-Kwan Kim

The middle piece of the house, phase three, occupies the back yard as defined in the master plan.
Description from the Architects:

ground floor plan--drawing © Courtesy of Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

second floor plan--drawing © Courtesy of Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

elevations--drawing © Courtesy of Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

sections--drawing © Courtesy of Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

Project Data
Project name: Pixel House
Location: Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Program: Single family house
Area: Site Area: 273.60 m2

Total Floor Area: 85.30 m2
Design Year: September 2001 – January 2003

Construction Year: February 2003 – November 2003
Site Coverage Area: 45.27 m2

Building-to-Land Ratio: 16.5%

Floor Area Ratio: 31.2%

Building Scope: 2 floors

Structure: RC • Finish: White brick

The people

Architects: Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

Mass Studies Team: Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park, Joungwon Lee, Soonbok Choi, Junkoo Kang, Sungpil Won

Slade Architecture Team: James Slade, Illya Korolev, Oliver Spreckelsen

Client: Younghyo Jin, Sookhee Chang
Structural Engineer: Youngho Lee

MEP Engineer: Samjung Engineers, Jinsan Engineers

Construction: Hanwool Construction

Note>>Location in this map, It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Pixel House / By Mass Studies + Slade Architecture

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