Design Concept
The site is located at the urban area close to the down-town of Daegu, one of the biggest Cities in South Korea. In contrast to its locality, this town is isolated from the major city development. The community gets older, and young couples tends to move out from the town to have better education for their children. The community even agrees of this change as inevitable fact.
As an architect who deeply studied and knew so much about the area, our ideas on the new architecture was more than brining a landmark or something special. It was to make a change for the community to give them the new cultural experience, the icon and even a hope that which the community shouts out to others the town is not dead.
In addition to this major aspect of design task, we further explored. The elderly people in the church are outnumbered among church members. The infrastructure for them was too outdated. Especially, the location of the church with shortage of parking space worsens the approaches for those seniors.
Design Description
Based on the limited budget about 2.8 million USD for 3,500sm building; it ought to be a difficult task how we could achieve high with minimum financial input. Firstly, by separating two major elements, one is 900sm parking area and the other 2600sm for the function of the building. Our base design has to be very functional to meet the budget constraint, so the parking grid on plan is first thing we have to comply with in order to save cost and bring most efficient layout. Thus, the core design for the staircase and elevator was planned to make as compact space as possible.
Not to mention, we had to deeply contemplate about the Christianity as well. The symbolic idea of Christianity had to be revealed to align with Christians’ lives. We tried to express the definition of the Heaven referred from one of Beatitudes from the Bible, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Simply, it means despite harsh circumstances confronting us; our life will experience the Heaven through the condition of being poor in spirit.
Architecturally, the sloped hill to the site was a catalyst to enhance the obtuse or acute angles of the exterior shape as a form of life that would represent anguish, pain, sadness. And we added a mirror box in the middle of the mass, which is the worship sanctuary, to reflect the sky for church members to remember to look up the heaven despite their hardship on daily lives.
Chay Residence
The location of the project is on the downhill of the mountain, the Victoria Peak, in which the most famous HK Peak tram is located. Upon its locational value, the place is well resided among the trees and open toward city from the window and balcony. Especially the uniuqe feature of this complex is its Art Louvre details with half circled balconies at living room and master bedroom area, those of which become a primary element to be entailed on mood of space design.
Overall space design was, in short, to be Futuristic, Simplistic, and Warm. In order to bring these all together, we intended the round element from the half circles to be repeated at ceilings and partially at wall. The materials are mixed with wood and stone to give a sense of the warmth. In order to mix the better color tone, we mixed with black and white as main background. In addition, we added LED lights and nature wood color tone mixed together with all other elements.
MI International
Mission International is basically a non-denomination church that outreaches her ministry to young generations for high school and university students. MI’s unique program includes Sunday church service, various English classes, coffee house, BBQ party, accommodation for missionaries, etc. those of which is mainly focused on education for students. Due to its various program requirement, this Mixed-use building becomes in need of special design to meet this sole purpose of the mission.
Program requirements are set to accommodate missionaries’ short stays, staff offices, classrooms, church service auditorium, kitchens and coffee shop, and all other common spaces such as toilet, elevator lobbies, parking space, etc. Besides needs on those functions, the most rigorous restriction in our design proposal was the construction budget. The only sponsor who donated for this project was the church pastor himself since the ministry was only focused on students. Our design is to be mostly functional and the space has to be minimized yet maximized to meet the low cost construction method by following the local building code as well as the need to increase the visual awareness to express the church’s unique presence among the region.
By regional building code requirements, the 1st floor was setback for parking space for this building size. 2nd floor and 3rd floor are designed to include classrooms, coffee shop, short stays for missionaries as well as offices. Lastly, 4th floor is designed for the church service to include 250~300 people for Friday, Saturday & Sunday services.
The featured aluminum metal fins attached to the exterior curtain wall are to express the letter ‘MI’ as the gesture to continue the design element. Thus, porous metal panel attached at L4 was to cover the corrugate metal panel which was placed to increase thermal insulation as well as to reduce the cost of the wall structure.
Old Description:
Mission International is a church that outreaches its ministry to young generations especially university students. The church has unique programs different from other churches in Korea. Mainly, it serves people not in Korean but rather in English. Its language benefits young people to learn more about English, and at the same time they will learn to see the world through the language and also importantly good news from the Bible. Because of this different set of ministry, its design requirement was to be new and different. Not to mention, it was to base limited budget requirement for construction as well.
In order to use the maximum site area within the budget, initial design began with functional requirements of setback and parking circulation at the ground floor area. So, 1st floor area was defined by the space required for parking and use of common space. 2nd floor includes cafeteria and office area. 3rd floor was planned for classrooms for students during week days. The final 4th floor had been set to follow the required capacity of occupancies 250 for the church service for Sunday service. As a challenge all the time, limited budget with aesthetic expectation has been long debate to find exterior and interior materials to choose for limited selections. The featured metal fins attached to the exterior curtain wall was compromised with its size and detailed connection materials.
Regardless of all, we believe that its unique and simple design idea enhance the beauty of the building in the region