Dongsung-dong Neighborhood Facility

A project that left me questioning the very purpose of the design review system.

The site sits on a corner where the road forks into three within Daehak-ro, one of Seoul's prime districts at the peak of its commercial vitality.

On such a small site with extremely high land-use pressure, securing the first-floor area the client wanted meant the parking area had to be minimized. We introduced a new parking method that improves spatial efficiency over conventional mechanical parking, minimizing the first-floor parking footprint.

While studying many alternatives for the spatial and formal composition, we reflected on this building's regional context — the flow of young people, how they would perceive the space and form, the character of the street as one approaches from Daehak-ro, and the nature of the space encountered upon entering.

Through three rounds of design review, it became a project that left me strongly doubting what exactly is being reviewed, whose ideas end up reflected in the building, and whether anyone can fully account for the result of such a process.