Jeju Island Jusangjeolli Living Heritage
Designed in collaboration with South Korean landscape architecture office HLD, this proposal was the runner-up in an invited competition to redesign the visitor experience at one of Jeju Island’s most characteristic natural heritage sites.
| Location: | Jeju Island, South Korea |
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| Status: | Competition Runner-up |
| Date: | 2018 |
| With: | HLD Landscape |
Designed in collaboration with South Korean landscape architecture office HLD, this invited competition proposal tells the many-layered story of one of Jeju Island’s most important heritage sites, the Jusangjeolli columnar jointing area, where a forest of polygonal basalt columns formed when molten lava flowed into the sea and cooled under particular conditions. Through a mix of evocative landscaped zones, and a set of complimentary pavilions, the project reveals the history of the spectacular geological formations, the island’s volcanic origins, its pine forests and ancient mythology, local fishing traditions and agricultural practices, recent scientific research, and the impact tourism culture.
Vistors to the park would move through a series of highly evocative landscapes. Fields of volcanic gravel related to the area’s famous dry-stone windbreak walls. Agricultural areas, planted in resilient native species of coastal meadow, would tell of the history of the islands agricultural practices and settlement patterns. In other areas, soil is scraped away to reveal the underlying volcanic clinker, displaying the flow of magma from a nearby volcanic cone. Near the coastline, where there is enough soil, the island’s characteristic pine trees are re-established. All these landscapes are supported by a set of complimentary pavilions, which offer places of rest and shelter, or exposure and adventure, infrastructure for practical use, and places to gather.
Viewing Platforms
Lightweight platforms made of stainless steel grating over rough clinker, and textured concrete on flatter ground, expand the experience of visitors right up to the edge of the basalt formations, and create opportunities to gather in groups as well as enjoy the view in solitude.
Cultural Experience Zone
Further inland, the relationship between the island’s geology and centuries of human inhabitation is revealed, in an partly sunken pavilion that provides a gather space for public talks and performances.
Geological Exploration Zone
At the site’s eastern gateway, a ranger pavilion with a rooftop lookout provides a base for park staff, sho will provide guided tours of the site’s more sensitive areas.
Wave Cove
Where the ocean waves meet a cove in the cliffs, they are focused into an impressive spray of water, which is further amplified by the polished concrete canopy of the wave cove. The experience here focuses on the lives of the Haenyeo, the women divers of Jeju Island, who dive without oxygen tank, well into their 80’s, to gather shellfish like abalone and urchins.
Neobaegii Market:
Over the years, the park has provided a space for local villagers to sell their crafts and produce. A set of market pavilions at the park entrance, in close proximity to the ticket and information stations, provide a permanent link between the villagers and the park. These pavilions are inspired by the informal market stalls found all over South Korea, providing lockable storage space, plumbing and electricity, and a lightweight roof.
The site pavilions are a cohesive family with a similar construction logic, but depending on the location will have different material character.
See the full competition panels:
Gukhoe Daero
| Location: | Seoul, South Korea |
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| Status: | Competition 3rd Place |
| Date: | 2019 |
Gukhoe-daero park leads directly to the National Assembly Building; it should represent the future of healthy and resilient city building. A 21st century park must generate value on multiple levels, socially, environmentally and economically. It must address the future of cities in terms of ecological resilience, the needs of populations in terms of health, sustenance and recreation, and needs to be flexible and multi-functional from a productive point of view. A new linear park on Gukhoe-Daero can also help bring together disconnected urban communities, ecological areas and people.
What is the DNA of such a healthy city? We believe that it is composed of three “strands”, each associated with a type of space:
1) Productive spaces
2) Active space
3) Wild spaces
Only when these three strands are brought together can citizens live healthy, active lives.
Vilnius Concert Hall
| Location: | Vilnius, Lithuania |
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| Status: | Competition Entry |
| Date: | 2019 |
| With: | Studio Vaaro |
The New National Concert Hall “Tautos Namai” has been a long time in the making and has the potential to become a major cultural attractor and incubator for the city of Vilnius. With this goal in mind, it is critical that the House of the Nation and the two state-of-the-art Concert Halls should coexist in a way that redefines the highly symbolic site of Tauras Hill as an open, inclusive and multipurpose resource for the city. Our proposal for the National Concert Hall, a highly visible icon composed of three pure shapes, will act as a new form of social infrastructure to foster creativity, learning, and engagement with Lithuania’s strong cultural heritage.
Three Distinct Volumes
The brief calls for three main programs: the Grand Hall, the Small Hall, and the House of the Nation. Each of these programs has its own scale and specific requirements; we have chosen to express each of them as such. These three distinct, visually independent volumes carefully placed at the top of Tauras Hill allow for a clear and direct reading of the New National Concert Hall from throughout the city. The receding scale of the three buildings, from large, to medium, to small, from the more ceremonial and monumental to the more intimate and familiar, creates a dynamic yet poised addition to the Vilnius sky line. Subtle variations to the facade modulations and roof slopes of all three volumes provides them each with a unique character while allowing them to co-exist harmoniously as a whole.
1. The Grand Hall Volume
The Grand Hall is the largest of the three programs and as such, the Grand Hall Volume is the largest of the three volumes. The Hall itself is inspired by the classic European shoebox concert halls, such as the Grosser Musikvereinssaal (Vienna) and Concertgebouw (Amsterdam). The Hall interior adopts a simple and efficient shape that is dictated by the stringent acoustic requirements. The Hall itself is set back from the North, East and West facades. It is therefore expressed as a distinct volume floating within the brick facade enclosure, ensuring that it is clearly visible from the city to the North. The Grand hall foyers are shifted and stacked along the North facade, providing commanding views of Vilnius.
2. The Small Hall Volume
This mid-sized volume includes both the Small Hall and the public Entry Hall, the principal access point of the building and a performance and events space in its own right. Lifted off the ground and set back from the North and South facades, the Small Hall appears suspended above the Entry Hall, and again is clearly visible from the city to the North. Lifting the hall creates a triple-height space at the North of the Entry hall, and generous views onto the city. The Small Hall is a well-proportioned, multi-functional performance space designed for optimal acoustics and high reconfigurability. Capable of accommodating intimate piano recitals, chamber music performances, and hosting talks and gala dinners, the Small Hall is a truly flexible space.
3. The House of the Nation Volume
The smallest of the three volumes, The House of the Nation is no less powerful. The House of the Nation (HoN) itself has been conceived as a cutting-edge cultural incubator and social connector that will provide publicly accessible spaces for cultural and educational activities. Located across two levels, the HoN has deliberately been expressed independently from the two concert halls and is highly visible from the city and from the main East drop-off. The ground floor is conceived as a flexible exhibition and performance space. A double-height cutout along the North facade, with integrated bleacher seating, allows for a unique vantage point during performances and provides a visual connection to the Mediatheque and Cultural Library above. The restaurant and Library/Mediatheque programs are seen as extensions of the HoN program and as opportunities to spread awareness of Lithuanian literature, music, and cuisine. As a whole, the House of the Nation Volume will be a valuable resource that will facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas about Lithuanian history and culture.
Site Plan
A Place Between Grassland and Forest
Located at the top of Tauras Hill, the site lies at the intersection of two distinct landscape typologies: the mixed-forest landscape of the urban parks to the South, East and West, and the grassy slopes of Tauras hill. While these two landscapes each have their own value and iconic character, they neither form a cohesive ecological network nor welcome visitors to dwell within them.
The missing link: A Connective Central Landscape
Our site is the pinch point between these two landscapes, and the existing building on site currently acts as a barrier, disconnecting them from each other.
Through the creation of entry plaza spaces on each side of the building and a network of passageways through the site, we propose the creation of a connective landscape that reconnects the various adjacent ecosystems to the site and to one another. This not only provides pedestrian connections through the site, but also creates ecological corridors for wildlife and pollinators, as well as new hydrological opportunities for stormwater management and erosion control.
An Immersive Forest Hub
This central reconnective landscape uses planting and paving to create a gradual shift from dense forest to visually open grassland. It is a central hub of cultural activity, and a place of respite that welcomes visitors to dwell. The site is to be planted with native species of coniferous trees and fragrant ground covers that immerse visitors within a type of forest that would have once covered the majority of Lithuania, a place where one can feel both safe and in touch with the land. This planting scheme provides comfortable shelter from the noise and bustle of urban life while creating a clear and distinct landscape identity that signals one’s arrival to the concert hall.
Ground Level Plan
Native Grassland Slope
South Forest Courtyard
Grand Hall
Small Hall, during the performance of a quartet
Grand Hall Section
East West Section
A Family of Landscapes: LH Daejang Town Masterplan
| Location: | Daejang, South Korea |
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| Status: | Honourable Mention, Competition 3rd Place |
| Date: | 2020 |
| With: | SAC International |
Bucheon-Daejang area, located within the greenbelt of Seoul, is surrounded by diverse landscapes. Mountains to the south. Agricultural fields to the north, Gulpo creek to its east (and several smaller creeks running through it): Landscapes define the experience of the site.
The new town should be conceived as an articulation of (rather than erasure of) existing landscape, securing and strengthening its ecological function and fostering the creation of human communities within it. Creating a city that enhances biodiversity, and ecological strength of the landscape, will also foster a new kind of resilient human community.
Our proposal creates a hierarchy of landscapes, ranging from big nature corridors that perform the most important ecological and hydrological functions, active corridors containing sports fields, schools, and urban agriculture, ecological neighbourhood streetscapes, which combine transportation and ecological infrastructure, to intimate communal courtyards and pocket spaces.
The scale of landscape relates to the scale of the human community. The big nature serves the entire Bucheon-Daejang town. Each active corridor serves one district. Ecological streets serve a neighbourhood, and courtyards are shared with one’s immediate neighbours.
At each scale/layer/level the landscapes perform an ecological and hydrological function, a productive function - providing food, clean air, energy and carbon sequestration, they provide a connection to nature. By foregrounding the ecological, productive, and natural processes, the project also fosters new kinds of connections between the people and creates new resilient communities.
As one traverses outward from the apartment unit, the unit of engagement expands from one’s family, then to a collection of families, neighbours, who share a courtyard, to an entire neighbourhood that is a collective of courtyards. Multiple neighbourhoods comprise a district, sharing an Active Corridor. Finally, the Big Nature corridors are shared by the entire community of Bucheon-Daejang.
The hierarchy of landscapes is akin to a biological family, with each layer setting the stage for the next. It marks a continuum and mirrors the passage of a human's journey into and with the world. The innermost section, the Courtyards, embodies a sense of intimacy, enclosure and safety like an embrace as if to provide a shelter for an infant to begin the early steps into the world. The neighbourhood is a familiar and safe world for a child. While active corridors at the heart of each district facilitate diverse activities for young adults. Finally, the forests and creeks in the big nature corridors are like a wise mature adult.
As the landscape expands and opens up its physical presence, it breathes energy into the human engagement with the world as individuals and as a community, first with one's family, then with a neighbourhood, a community, then the world.
“Family of Landscapes” concept diagram
Masterplan
Masterplan morphology diagrams
Active corridor
“Big Nature” Corridor at SBRT Node
Neighbourhood square in Pilot Village
Ecological promenade and commercial zone section
Ecological promenade and commercial zone plan
Ecological promenade and commercial zone View