Apartments are the most common and preferred form of dwelling in South Korea, yet architects are often, if not completely, excluded from discussions about them. This is not only because the government and private enterprises use apartments as tools for control and capital accumulation, but also because architects ourselves have pushed apartments outside our own realm of project. As architects, we rarely question the historical, social, political, economic, and ideological contexts that have shaped the current form of apartments.
To situate the Korean apartment within the architectural project, this workshop begins with a series of fundamental questions: During the early years of Japanese colonial rule, why and how did apartments come to be called as “apartments”? When and through what processes did the living room emerge in apartment plans? How are riots and new town developments interconnected? Why did high-rise steel-frame apartments proliferate so rapidly after the 1997 IMF financial crisis? How do apartments entrench people in cycles of debt? And ultimately, what would a better apartment look like?
The workshop challenges the assumptions that have normalized the current state of apartments by interpreting them as indexes of social and political conditions. Furthermore, we explore the possibility of room-based apartment with communal spaces, against unit-based apartment, following Karel Teige’s argument on minimum dwelling. Participants will first analyse and map out the existing apartment buildings and complexes and use these as a foundation to propose new apartment livings. These new archetypes will build upon the structural and economic advantages of apartments while introducing various forms of living, such as: kitchen-less houses, residential hotels, short-term living spaces, dormitories, artist house/studio, and collective housing.
Ultimately, this project seeks to resist the forces of sedentarisation and commodification that define the current apartments by drawing new architectural possibilities based on mutual care.
Apartments are the most common and preferred form of dwelling in South Korea, yet architects are often, if not completely, excluded from discussions about them. This is not only because the government and private enterprises use apartments as tools for control and capital accumulation, but also because architects ourselves have pushed apartments outside our own realm of project. As architects, we rarely question the historical, social, political, economic, and ideological contexts that have shaped the current form of apartments.
To situate the Korean apartment within the architectural project, this workshop begins with a series of fundamental questions: During the early years of Japanese colonial rule, why and how did apartments come to be called as “apartments”? When and through what processes did the living room emerge in apartment plans? How are riots and new town developments interconnected? Why did high-rise steel-frame apartments proliferate so rapidly after the 1997 IMF financial crisis? How do apartments entrench people in cycles of debt? And ultimately, what would a better apartment look like?
The workshop challenges the assumptions that have normalized the current state of apartments by interpreting them as indexes of social and political conditions. Furthermore, we explore the possibility of room-based apartment with communal spaces, against unit-based apartment, following Karel Teige’s argument on minimum dwelling. Participants will first analyse and map out the existing apartment buildings and complexes and use these as a foundation to propose new apartment livings. These new archetypes will build upon the structural and economic advantages of apartments while introducing various forms of living, such as: kitchen-less houses, residential hotels, short-term living spaces, dormitories, artist house/studio, and collective housing.
Ultimately, this project seeks to resist the forces of sedentarisation and commodification that define the current apartments by drawing new architectural possibilities based on mutual care.