In-Between House (IB House)
Architecture of Reconnection Between Building and Urban ContextAfter birth, the first challenge faced by a human being is not independence, but the transformation of an existing condition of connection into a new form of relationship. The infant does not immediately become autonomous after separation from the mother; rather, safety and development emerge through gradual processes of reconnection, adaptation, and external regulation.This biological condition reveals a fundamental principle: independence is not created through isolation, but through the maturation of relationships.A similar condition exists within contemporary cities. As urban density increases and larger developments replace smaller historical plots, many existing buildings gradually lose their meaningful relationship with their surrounding context. The intimacy, diversity, and continuity of neighborhoods are disrupted by new scales, boundaries, and functional pressures, transforming buildings into isolated fragments detached from the urban body that once gave them identity.In-Between House begins with this rupture: the loss of contact between architecture and its immediate environment. The project investigates how a building, disconnected from its neighborhood, can regain a meaningful relationship with the city, its users, and its collective memory.Rather than treating the building as an autonomous object, IB House transforms the external relationship between architecture and urban context into an internal spatial condition. Transitional spaces, shared territories, and intermediate zones become active architectural fields where interaction, belonging, and collective experience can emerge.The “in-between” is not considered an absence or leftover space; it becomes a productive condition — a spatial mechanism for restoring relationships. Similar to the biological process of co-regulation, these spaces establish a dynamic balance between separation and connection, privacy and collectivity, interior and exterior.Through redefining the relationships between solid and void, building and ground, and private and public realms, IB House proposes an alternative model for contemporary urban architecture. The project does not resist transformation; instead, it creates a framework where change and continuity can coexist.In-Between House proposes that architecture should not exist as an isolated object within the city, but as a living participant in its social and spatial ecosystem.The project transforms separation into connection, fragmentation into continuity, and the lost relationship between building and context into a renewed architectural dialogue between people, place, and time.