Founded in 2009, stpmj is a husband-and-wife design practice founded by Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim with small offices working in both New York and Seoul. In its beginnings, stpmj worked on various competitions and small-scale pavilions in which the duo experimented with the possibilities of materials and sensory experience.
After winning the Young Architects and Designers Prize from the Architectural League in New York in 2012, stpmj is this year’s recipient of the Korean Young Architects Award from the Ministry of Culture in Korea. In this exclusive Architizer interview, stpmj discusses the firm’s beginnings, influencers and design direction for ongoing and future projects.
Inflatable Dike Shed: A Temperature Sensitive Pavilion, Winnipeg, Canada, 2016
Chloé Vadot: How did you start your practice?
Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim: Stpmj is a husband-and-wife design practice. We have shared lots of ideas and worked together since our time in school, at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, where we met. Before we officially registered the office, we had a sort of a ‘dual life.’ We worked at other offices during the daytime for survival and developed our design philosophy with small competitions and installations at night.
When we received the “Young Architects and Designers Prize” from the New York Architectural League in 2012, we set our office name as stpmj, a series of initials of the values we pursue — Speculative, Trailblazing, Playful, Materialized and Judicious — as well as a combination of our initials: st + p (plus) + mj.
Synaesthetic Sense: Material, Body and Performance, Gwangju, South Korea, 2009
When describing your firm’s work, you explain that “stpmj aims for provocative realism.” Could you elaborate on what this notion means to you, and how you interpret provocative realism in your design process and built work?
Stpmj advocates for a new perspective from diverse contexts. We investigate different usages of materials and efficient manners of production. We are interested in how existing conditions or limits give another level of challenge with intellect of thoughts and questions as well as a strong commitment to realize the ideas. When we approach projects — both commissions and competitions — we try to find new possibilities from the context, constraints or limited budgets.
© Yousub Song
Shear House, Yecheon-gun, South Korea, 2016
In Shear House, we were asked to design a typical pitched-roof house, which became the only constraint from the client and a starting point for us. Maintaining a simple wood framing structure, we tweaked the roof volume so that it protrudes and creates recessed areas of shade on the south side and a terrace toward the north. This results in transforming the typology of a typical pitched roof house to improve the environment of and around the home. This simple treatment makes a big impact through a small change, keeping within the targeted construction budget.
In Invisible Barn, we applied the mirror effect in a different way than others. We focused on reflecting the existing natural settings carefully so as to achieve the look of “having disappeared in nature” beyond simply applying mirror to the surface for reflective purposes.
Invisible Barn, Truckee, Calif., USA, 2015
You are based in both New York and Seoul. How do you handle the communication and exchange between those two cities?
We consider our practice as a floating station, not limited to a fixed location and amenable to settings between two cities. It collapses the traditional structure of practice that require[s] as big an office and as many employees as possible. It forces us to be nimble with new instructions and drawing standards and to work flexibly within larger networks. Most of the Seoul office’s projects are in Korea, while the New York office’s projects vary from the U.S. to a few in Europe.
We only have two employees in Seoul and one in New York, and we give them clear direction for design and construction through emails and phone calls. In this structure, small-scaled pavilions and installations that experiment with material and fabrication techniques have been successful so far. As we gear towards having more and bigger projects in the residential and cultural sectors, we plan to adapt to a new strategy that will allow us to handle some of the important steps such as filing permits, meeting with consultants and managing construction in each city. Until we find that new strategy, we may have to fly back and forth between New York and Seoul, but flying 14 hours each way is still a little tricky.
Drift: A Breeze Supportive Pavilion, Louisville, Ky., USA, 2014
Do you have principal influencers or designers that you study for inspiration?
It is hard to pick one specific influence for us since both of us have various experiences on each side. Both of us grew up in Seoul, Korea. Seung Teak studied at the Korea University and Harvard University and later worked at Herzog and de Meuron, nARCHITECTS and Levenbetts. Mi Jung studied at Yonsei University in Seoul, the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University, to finally work at Andrew Berman Architect in New York. All of those experiences helped us grow. Seung Teak is more interested in finding ideas and delivering those, while Mi Jung likes to develop details in very functional ways. Our differences in experience and design approach definitely allow us to create stronger projects.
Proposal for Switch On & On, 2010
We see many more young practices being created nowadays. What do you think are some reasons for the shift, and how do you foresee this evolving in the future?
As you know, when we were graduating school in 2009, the global economic downturn was extremely bad and froze the job market. Many employees lost their jobs, and graduates were not able to find their place at existing offices. At the moment, many are establishing their own firms or offices to survive as architects or designers. In this era, it is much easier for designers to see and reinterpret other works or to get information on what they want through various media.
People are self-educating. In this sense, it is not as necessary to learn or to spend so much time receiving training from the architectural master’s office. This encourages many young practices to establish their own office. We expect to see a diversity of authentic voices in the future, not always ironed out, but with fresh ideas. Young firms tend to have their own design DNA instead of succeeding or modifying the masters’ practices.
Proposal for Paper-Berg: Individual research of folding paper and structure, 2013
What does receiving the Korean Young Architects Award from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism mean for you? Do you have plans for growth or future projects you would like to share with us?
It is a significant achievement for us to receive “Young Architects” awards in both the States and Korea. The Korean Young Architects Award is one of few awards sponsored by the government. With the award, we see the appreciation of our design method and philosophy and hope to be commissioned for more projects in Korea. It encourages us to stay with our design direction and to keep pushing forward. Currently, we are working on a couple of residential projects, experimenting with materials like concrete, brick and metal. Construction on these is expected to start this fall.
In addition, Mi Jung was recently assigned as a public architect of Seoul by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. This government-run public program — similar to New York’s Design + Construction Excellence Program — gives architects more opportunities to participate in the city’s projects. We hope to expand the spectrum of our work to reach more of the public, including cultural and mixed-use programs beyond residential.
Proposal for Edible Detroit, 2013
Interview edited for clarity