Of House and Home: Rethinking-Reworking, a Century of Korean Housing 1910-2010

Full Course Description

Our Studio we will begin by studying the Hanok, the traditional Korean Home, considered in relation to its surroundings, land and seasons. We will see how House and Garden are an extension of habit, habitus, habitat, a sheltering within the genus loci. These dwellings are like instruments able to adjust to occupation, place, climate and culture, and that with material fitness and celebratory economy, sit beautifully, between necessity and expression; between day and night, seasons, dearth and abundance, occupation and preservation, gender and generations. We understand a history of dwelling in these well-structured places and from them abstract elements that could contribute to the design for the Modern Korean Home.

Field Trip Over Spring break (March 22-30)

We will travel to Seoul to present our Hanok work and to research past and present housing. We will move toward the contemporary condition by studying the changing housing types of Seoul.

• The Japanese Occupation: new housing types were introduced to Korea in the process of industrialization (Toyota Housing). These housing types were made of modern materials, several stories tall and adapted to modern infrastructure, etc.
• Rebuilding after the devastation of the Korean War: there was an immediate need for inexpensive mass housing to accommodate the populations displaced by the war. The Chaebols (family-owned business conglomerates) took on the challenge of the shifting and growing demographic (Central Seoul’s population rose from 1,052,000 in 1950 to 9,690,000 in 2018) industrializing the construction process and housing families in high rise complexes. These projects were expedient but were not considered in the relation to the deeper culture, context, material expression, environment and place making.
• More recently Contemporary City Dwellers have turned to architects like Hwang Doojin, Iroje, and many others looking for a modern housing type that could reflected back to the dense but rich traditional urban neighborhood organization and Hanok type as a way of deepening the connection of contemporary dwelling to Korean Culture and offering an alternative to the Samsung, Hyundai… massive housing complexes. Before and during our field trip to Seoul we will study the past and present housing and neighborhoods of Seoul recognizing their positive possibilities as well as their difficulties. We will research and document several housing types and when in Seoul present our work to and work with experts, architects and historians, concerned with the question of a contemporary Korean City and Home. The second half of the semester will be spent designing housing prototypes in the light of our Academic and Field research. The Final Review will be attended by Experts concerned with Contemporary Housing a unified Korean future.
  

Program Details

Full requirements for eligibility for travel component

Must be a registrant in this Advanced Studio.