STARWARS HOUSE

South Korea has been and is still dominated by apartments. more than half of the population live in them. from early 2010, a slow but progressive boom in building single houses designed by architects came into vogue.

The House boom.

Many young couples with kids wanted a house of their own with a garden, where family activities and leisure could take place.

The client.

A young family of four dropped by my office one day, hoping to design a fun filled house with a limited budget. They had made a big decision to move from a city to a country side, where there were only few people around. The parents wanted their kids to grow up in a natural environment. He was an airline pilot, and his wife a former ground crew.

The 1st design.

The wife wanted an open plan with one floor having most rooms.

The husband wanted some fun, and told me about his youthful dream of becoming an astronaut.

The first design turned out like a large wing that hovered over a small entrance structure. It turned out that construction fee would be too high...we had to jettison it.

The final design.

We kept the footprint small and volume tight, but provided 3rd floor for fun and play. It became a sight-seeing room of the house. We talked about making something simple, within the budget and fun...We talked about the movie starwars, and took some inspirations from it, like angled walls and grooves wrapping the house. the house has a small footprint, but has aatrium within it. the upward movement and dynamic quality of the house is accentuated by level difference within each floors, which makes it hard to figure from outside as to how many floors there are in the house. the third floor has secret room hidden by a book shelf door. a small slide and a place high up that could be a control room for future darthvader or a jedi