Living Knot

LIVING KNOT

Polymur

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

ARCHITECTS
Polymur

LOCATION
Gangneung, South Korea

CATEGORY
Houses

AREA
16101.0 m²

PHOTOGRAPHS
Kyungsub Shin

YEAR
2012

CONTRACTOR
Segyung Housing ltd

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Seojin Gujo

M&E ENGINEER
Woojin, Geonchang

ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Homin Kim, Chris Yoo, Heekyung Mun, Sangki Lee, Wonil Kim, Suki Kwon, Chawon Go

DESIGN TEAM
Suki Kwon, Heekyung Mun, Sangki Lee, Wonil Kim, Chawon Go

MECHANICAL & ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
Woojin Geonchang

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

Text description provided by architect.

This small private residence situated in a rural agricultural village of Gangneung.

The slightly elevated site on the start of a hill enjoys an almost panoramic view of the surrounding which is dominated by local mountainscape.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

Started by investigating a way in which Korean traditional villas forming intimate relationships to the external spaces from each room, the design of this house tries to emulate this relationship between interior and exterior throughout the building.

In traditional Korean villas, the organisation of the building uses linear volumes to maximise the contact with external spaces.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

In this house linear volumes are used to create simple two storey building, two bands of volumes forming a knot, and throughout the house multiple frames of views of outside to different directions are introduced and access to the exterior spaces are provided from every room.

The two rings of volumes which is sharing the circulation space of the house functionally separates the private living spaces to the more public area within the house.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

The exterior of these two bands are distinguished by different materiality as well. Also this ring of volumes creates outside spaces that are interwoven into the building forming terraces, courtyard and gardens.

In this house, double loops are introduced as a device for carrying the property of either ‘typical’ or ‘a-typical living’ that is categorized according to its domestic use.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

The one relates to more private functions such as bedroom, kitchen, bathroom etc. whereas the other does to more semi-private uses like guestroom, gallery, tea room and so on.

By means of combining them without diminishing their own characteristics, the dynamic relationship between them has been established for constructing totality of living.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

In the design process, the interaction between them produces a certain indeterminacy which triggers spontaneous use of space.

As an actualization process, loops are unfolded to the bands corresponding to spatiotemporal sequence of activities.

They are utilized for coding information as a medium to absorb programmatic requirements, according to which each activity in the band were translated into width, depth and height of space.

Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin

Eventually, the coded bands are folded back to loops, which are interlinked to be a totality of living.


Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin
Living Knot
© Kyungsub Shin


Living Knot
Ground Floor Plan
Living Knot
Site Plan
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Site Plan
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Site Plan


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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation
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Elevation


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Section
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Section
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Section


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Model
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Model
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Model
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Diagram
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Diagram
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Diagram
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Diagram
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Diagram
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Diagram
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Model
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Diagram