Muyidong

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Muyidong

Firm

Joh Sungwook Architects

Type

Residential › Private House Multi Unit Housing

YEAR

2012

This
house sits on a 232sqm site located in Pangyo new town, on the outskirts of
Seoul, where more than 1,500 similar-sized housing lots are planned. ‘Muyidong (無異同)’ was
designed to accommodate two families with four members each. It is a building
with two independent houses in a row for two close households often gathering
together. The name ‘Muyidong’ takes its meaning from Buddhist concept ‘neither
same, nor different’.
To
preserve privacy of two families, the building is separated into two -‘E-house
and W-house’, with less private staircase inbetween. As a result, the
side-by-side masses share one common wall dividing the staircase.
By
turning the second floor of W-house into a four-meter cantilevered structure,
children’s rooms are floating over the two-car parking lot. On rainy days kids
can play and dads can do their carpentry work underneath.

Despite
the small volume for two families, usable space gets maximized by; making the
first floor flexible enough to be used as a living-room, dining-room,
guest-room, meeting-room, play-room, and so on; creating children’s zone on the
second floor as a three-dimensional play space by connecting the kids’ rooms,
attic, and corridor; utilizing the ‘common room’ in-between two houses in
various ways as a theater, lecture-room, play room, laundry-drying room, and so
on. The roof garden is also an expansion of the common space both families can
gather for barbeque, farming, picnic, and snow sleighing when it snows.

A
three meter-long island sink and dining bar occupies the midst of the first
floor and extends its line towards the living room. When parents are cooking or
dining inside, they can see their kids playing in the yard. Wooden sliding
frames finished with traditional Korean paper divide the first floor space into
two, creating a cozy little dining room or a bedroom for guests.
Each
kid’s room is only 2.4 meter-wide and 3 meter-long. With their sliding doors
open, however, playing zone expands to the corridor where kids can jump, run,
and draw whatever they want on the wall with whiteboard finish. Furthermore,
three different levels in their rooms – floor level, +1.25m mid-floor level, and +2.5m attic level
- expand the volume of the rooms not only by width but by height as well
creating a three dimensional play space. Kids can reach the attic directly from
their rooms and also from the corridor by climbing a rock-climbing wall. Attic
is open to the corridor so that parents can watch and talk to their children up
and playing.
Way
to the roof in a typical house is merely a simple narrow dark staircase. In
this house, however, the staircase connecting the second floor to the roof was
designed as a ‘multi-functional common room’. All other stairs of each house
are independent and private, but this ‘room’ is a ‘common’ area where two
families can meet, play, and watch movies together. It is also used as a
lecture hall, and a perfect location for air-drying laundry during weekdays. Treads
and risers here are 50 centimeters, and ordinary stairs lies in between the big
ones.

Product Spec Sheet

JOH SUNGWOOK ARCHITECTS

Finishes

Zehnder

HVAC

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Muyidong

Muyidong

Product Spec Sheet

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