Sumsei Terarium

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

SUMSEI TERARIUM

None Space

CATEGORY
Cultural Architecture, Gallery, Sustainability

LOCATION
Seongdong-gu, South Korea

INTERIOR DESIGNERS
None Space

AREA
412 M²

YEAR
2021

PHOTOGRAPHS
Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

LANDSCAPE CONSULTANTS
None Space

CLIENTS
Sumsei Terarium

DESIGN TEAM
None Space

Text description provided by architect.

We focused on a special story of our brand in order to spread the strengths of Sumsei in the room. Sumsei has products that mostly encounter bare bodies or bare feet, such as ‘body dryer’ which is the leading product that is used to easily dry the body after shower.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

We paid attention to the fact that it is the closest brand to our body among many products that we easily pass by in our daily life. Wind blows when we stand up on Sumsei with a bare body, and the wind slowly awakens our senses.

The awakening of the senses is the process of constantly redefining oneself by the senses from recognizing one's body as the subject of the senses. Sumsei awakens our senses from head to toes and constantly ventilates our existence like the poem “Flower” by the poet Kim Choon Soo and the “rose” of the Little Prince, and this is the key element to unraveling the space of Sumsei.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

First of all, in order to evoke our daily lives filled with boredom and awaken unfamiliar senses, we need to return our body to a state of nothingness. And by opening our senses intentionally, it allows you to feel the experience of building up layers of sense on your own.

We plan a space that opens different senses for each floor, and we intended the staircase to suggest the next space. Each floor is melted with spatial and temporal background, which is intended to help the audience empathize when the senses open gradually.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

Not just limited to senses, when the audience empathizes with the spatial context, we thought that we could maximize the experience that they feel in it.

B1

When you go down to the basement, the space on the first basement floor you will encounter is deep ground and deep night. According to the guidance, all the spectators will take their shoes off and enter with bare feet to the space of Sumsei.

They will pass through the dark, sightless, and long passage, while solely depending on the candle and sensations from the tips of their hands and feet. It takes courage to take a step while leaving behind the vague fear that surrounds you.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

At this moment, the toe transmits a total of three different senses, and the touch of the ground coming in contact with the foot feels very new. Furthermore, as the sensation of the feet changes, you can also experience how the pieces of sound that enter your ears change.

At the end of the passage, there is a space for meditation where you can put down the candle you depended on while passing through the passage and take a moment to clear your senses while looking at the candle.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

The flickering candles caress the blurry figures, and the spectator can feel their vague senses gradually becoming clearer. After passing through the meditation space, an underground space that maximizes the spatial and temporal background appears. The void space of the building was used to create a gap in the dark ground where the night sky was opened.

1F WATER OF DAWN

At the end of the first basement floor, you can feel the water flowing down from the first floor. When you go up to the first floor by following the stairs where the water flows, the temporal background changes from deep night to dawn, and the spatial background changes from the ground to a wetland.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim
Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

Dawn hides the light of the world and only reveals its black-and-white form. It was opened a little more visually than in the ground where nothing could be seen, but it is still more breath-taking. Although the front sight is still blurry, senses are gradually awakened by the sharp touch of the water.

After stepping on the water path and mud that hints at the shore, you arrive at the shore where the mist rises. You gradually wake up at dawn as you realize yourself anew in a stillness that moves slowly.

2F HEART OF WIND

As you climb the stairs along the grass, you arrive at a field where the wind blows. The wind is not something that can be easily captured by our eyes. Therefore, we thought that it was difficult to fully understand the wind simply by looking at something swaying in the wind. In this field, a landscape of wind that cannot be experienced in daily life was created to evoke the existence of the wind and to allow spectators to feel the various expressions of the wind with their whole body.

The first room has a field of reeds swaying in the wind below, and waves swaying in the wind above it. You can lie freely on the reed field and feel the traces of the wind with your whole body.

The second room has water below and a field of time above. This time, you can lie on the water and admire the fields swaying in the wind. While coming this far, spectators can feel a new sensation with every step, and feel that their whole body is gradually filled with clearer sensations through unfamiliar experiences. The clearer the body, the more vaguely scattered thoughts and emotions are organized.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

3F SUMSEI FOREST

After passing through a mysterious green passage where rustling leaves welcome you, you finally reach the forest. Birds are chirping, the water is flowing, and the sky is glimmering. The 3rd floor is the forest of Sumsei, where the five senses are opened.

You can also enjoy a drink with the scent of homegrown basil. Spectators will accept this space with their own senses that have been accumulated through the experiences from each floor. You can stay in peace with comfort while savoring the pieces of nature that have passed by.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy off Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim

ROOFTOP REFRESH FIVE SENSES

The rooftop is a space to expand the forest of Sumsei and finish the journey. The sky is infinitely high above your head, and in the sky, there is a mirror swaying in the wind. Below, a square, straight head contains the objects of the sky and wind. The mirror is a mirror of the self that is finally faced again, and is the period of a long journey.

Our body repeats to go in and out of nature due to the swaying mirror. The length and color of light that changes every moment, the expression of water that captures the sky, and you can even feel the sound of the wind moving through the bamboo and its canes.

The world changes depending on the range of our senses. In the space of Sumsei, you can discover your existence through the recovery of the senses and sensory experiences leave clear marks in our memories. Now, as rain, we are ready to face a more abundant daily life than yesterday.

A brand that derives joy that you have been facing all the time but have not been aware of rather than creating novelty that has never been seen before, Sumsei, a brand that brings joy that you have been looking at but unaware of, gathers the small movements and eventually takes the first step that will derive an emotional change to the world.

In this way, we tried to break away from the one-sided appeal of offline stores from the past through space. We tried to convey the brand’s message, which is “it is okay not purchasing” by eliciting the consumer’s active curiosity through not exposing the product on the front, the primordial experience of nature, and five senses.

Sumsei Terarium
Courtesy of Sumsei Terarium. Image © Jaeyoon Kim, Haneol Kim


Sumsei Terarium
Roof Plan
Sumsei Terarium
First Floor Plan
Sumsei Terarium
Third Flor Plan
Sumsei Terarium
Second Floor Plan
Sumsei Terarium
Floor Plan