**LOLO Café in Dangjin**
**"A Bridge Between Green and the City"**
The site of the café is located near Dangjin City Hall, across from the Sucheong District, which is experiencing rapid commercial development. It is positioned at the corner of the new city intersection and the old city, occupying a transitional space between the serene rural landscape, with its cherry blossoms and greenery, and the increasingly vibrant new urban area. Because of this, the most important issue for us was: "What stance should the building take as an architectural entity?" We wanted to move away from the traditional forms of commercial buildings with excessive façades and signage and instead create a space that could be recognized simply through the expression of the architecture itself.
### The First Step: The Question
Since a café is also a commercial facility, it could follow the typical path of nearby buildings, emphasizing its identity with flashy signage, colorful lights, and decorations. However, we wanted to change the existing architectural language. Rather than following the conventional style of commercial buildings, where exterior embellishments dominate, we sought to make the building itself the "sign"—creating a space where the essence of materials and form could be felt.
### "Back to Basics"
There are many approaches to massing and façade design in architecture, but we chose to break away from the usual framework and focus on the intrinsic qualities of the materials. Among many materials, we focused on the **expanded metal mesh** for its variable properties. The texture and translucency of expanded metal create a silhouette effect when wrapped around the building, while simultaneously highlighting the material's natural qualities. The expanded metal, concrete, stucco, and glass combine to form a "Double-Skin Layer," with overlapping elements creating moiré effects (wave-like patterns), providing a unique experience. This allowed the building to take on multiple identities, distinct from conventional commercial architecture, and gave the building a new identity. Additionally, the "Double-Skin Layer" does not count toward the building's floor area, but its multiple layers create a sense of spaciousness, making a small building appear larger. In the busy city intersection, with its complex forms and materials of surrounding buildings, this design allows the café to stand out without being overly bold, offering the architectural individuality necessary for a commercial facility.
### "Ever-Changing"
We intentionally varied the depth between the exterior layer and the building's core on each side, creating a dynamic visual experience that changes with the passage of time and shifts in light. During the bright day, the exterior expanded metal reflects gently, making the building appear like a simple rectangular box. However, during early mornings and evenings, internal lights seep out, and the layers of the building and exterior mesh overlap and become translucent, allowing the movements of café visitors to be visible. The material texture, combined with the changes over time and the movement of users, plays the role of a "third texture." These varying shifts in the streetscape, the in-between spaces, and the diverse façades provide a rich spatial experience and inject vitality into what could otherwise be a dry urban environment. This signifies that architecture is not merely a static structure but, when harmonized with time, light, and people, becomes an organic mediator.
Visitors entering through the strong pull of the entrance that pierces through the site can enjoy the spacious upper and lower levels filled with light, like taking a leisurely walk. Additionally, the outdoor terrace between the exterior layer and the building allows visitors to appreciate the birch trees and lush greenery while taking in the fresh air and taking a break. Sitting at a table, looking out through the glass reflections or through the transparent exterior mesh, visitors experience a familiar urban setting, but from a fresh and unfamiliar perspective. The varying vertical and horizontal spatial experiences, along with the different viewpoints from both inside and outside, ensure that the building remains captivating with every visit.
The interior space is stripped of extravagant decorative elements, focusing purely on the architecture itself, allowing the café to remain true to its function and its role in facilitating human connections.
While a café is a familiar place, it becomes a space in the city where one continuously crosses experiences of "outside and inside, plan and section," and visually experiences the intersection of "transparency and opacity, light and visual penetration." This layering adds depth and excitement to both memory and the architectural experience.
This is a gift that only architecture can offer.
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