studio_GAON renovates korean house to transcend time, memories and places

in jorge luis borges’ novel of same title, ‘el aleph’ is the one site which contains all the places in the universe, as well as all stars, all lamps, and all sources of light. it is also the first character of hebrew, and the beginning locus of every memory. studio_GAON describes designing the architecture of the house in domoon, south korea, just like being in aleph, a project to transcend time, to share memories and places. they say going through the process was like solving a puzzle; putting odd pieces together to make a complete whole.

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

one day a gentleman came from sokcho to erect a house. the site was in domoon-dong, which is an old town near the mouth of seoraksan mountain approach road. domoon means a door(moon, 門) to enlightenment(do, 道). there are two aged legends about the origin: one stars a monk who found great illumination in this place to open ‘the door of enlightenment’, and another is that this place is the first gateway into where monks go into seoraksan mountain to cultivate their religious awakening. hence, domoon-dong is the oldest town in sokcho. the site was quite large, and there was a tiny old house in the corner. the exterior of the old house was finished with wood instead of plaster, which made this house special inside, compared to other old houses around the area. the space inside was arranged as traditional korean house in cold region, ‘kyup-jip(겹집)’, with space arranged in stacking shape(田). old wooden finishing were discolored beautifully over the years, and the rusted tin roof was old but natural. with a bit of repair, people could live in an instant.

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

in most of the cases, when studio_GAON removes inside walls and ceilings of an old house in korea, they find a panel on the girder, put on the day of roof-raising construction process, to record the history of the house. the panel (sort of time capsule) would show them various information about the house including when it was built. but unfortunately, they couldn’t find any clue about this house inside. then one day, an old passer-by told them that he was born in this house and this house was actually moved from original location and rebuilt about a hundred years ago from a monk’s lodging near ulsanbawi rock in seoraksan mountain. it transpired that this house was older than a century. and during the difficult construction, they found there are two seongju-sin (house god) in this house. one god came from the original house in ulsanbawi, and the other one was in domoon-dong. the god from ulsanbawi was high in rank, so he insisted that he is the owner of this house to the domoon-dong god. even worse, he kicked the house to threat the domoon-dong god to make him leave.

image ⓒ youngchae park

one night, a carpenter met the domoon-dong god in a dream and the god bowed his thanks for mending the old house. and the god said that if this construction ends, he will be driven out from the ulsanbawi god, so he asked the carpenter earnestly not to finish and put a little aside. the carpenter woke up from the vivid dream and changed his mind of leaving halfway since the work was too tough. after hearing the story, the studio decided to enshrine each two god’s mortuary jar in the hall and the room, and move the domoon-dong god’s jar to the new house after completion. in any case, there are lots of things that they don’t know or can’t see but exist out there.

image ⓒ youngchae park

that was how they restored the past of the land. after winter, when spring was just around the corner, the house was completed and people offered sacrifice to spirits on a snowy day. that night, the owner found one tiger butterfly turning up, circling around the house, and flopping out. no one is sure if the seoungju-sin (house god) really exists, but they think that building a house or meeting a land is not a mere coincidence, but happens through a string of amazing relationships. studio_GAON doesn’t want to bet that a simple result of coincidence became these series of processes: the owner was planning to tear down the old house to use the lot as a parking spot, but meeting them changed his mind and eventually saved the old house.

image ⓒ youngchae park

sometimes, when rescuing houses from tearing down, there’s a feeling that there is some complicated and bottomless ego in old houses. usually, building a house is a process between the owner, architect, and land exchanging opinions, making concessions, and giving self-assertiveness. it’s like solving a complicated equation. fixing an old house is like inserting another ego named house barging in the relationship of the land, owner, and architect, and it makes the equation much more complicated. it’s this moment for the architect to listen carefully to each story and convey it between them and synthesize, to deduce a result carefully not to make a quarrel between them. the old house in domoon-dong became neat and warm again, though it’s unclear how much the gods or the owner are satisfied.

image ⓒ youngchae park

while renovating the old house, the owner changed his mind about the shape of the new house. the original idea was to build it in a big, rigid form, but he became to ponder about a suitable size for living and comfortable materials. the final shape resembled the old house and also the surrounding mountains. first, the house was divided into two and arranged them towards the south side to let the sun in. one became a main building(anchae, 안채) with kitchen and rooms, and the other one became the guest house(sarang-chae, 사랑채) with living room, music salon and attic. in so doing, three houses arose, soaring upwards like mountains from the land.

image ⓒ youngchae park

‘when designing and building a house, we encounter some unexpected situations or unsuspected stories. onto the framework of time and memories, the will of human and land are placed, to frame present and future. in that respect, architecture is a complicated and multidimensional structure.’ comments the studio. ‘doors lead us to go somewhere in or out. gaze of eyes go in and out through windows and space cross between doors. the door let us enter into a new world like the rabbit hole of alice. architecture is a door to let us cross the border of world and family, past and present, or present and future.’

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

image ⓒ yong kwan kim

1/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

project info:

architect: hyoungnam lim, eunjoo roh in studio_gaon
project team: sangwoo yi, minjung choi, seongwon son, sungpil lee, hanmoe lee, joowon moon, haein choi
photographs: yong kwan kim, youngchae park
location: domoon-dong, sokcho-si, gangwon-do, south korea
use: house
site area: 707㎡
building area: bldg1 144.01㎡, bldg2 59.54㎡ / total 203.55㎡
gross floor area: bldg1 144.01㎡, bldg2 88.3㎡ / total 215.05㎡
building scope: bldg1 1f, bldg2 2f
height: bldg1 6.00m, bldg2 6.35m
building-to-land ratio: 28.79%
floor area ratio: 30.42%
structure: wood frame structure
finish: kmew siding, wood siding
construction: starsis
supervision: studio_gaon
design period: 2013.06-2014.07
construction period: 2013.10-2014.09

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: juliana neira | designboom

Save