Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Chipped House

This is a project by Mass Studies and it is located at Gyeonggido, South Korea. Project's program: Single family house. There are twenty images for Chipped House.

: © Yong-Kwan Kim

Project details

Project name: Chipped House
Location: Gyeonggido, South Korea
Program: Single family house
Area: Site Area: 649.4 m2 • Total Floor Area: 328 m2
Year: Design: 2004.9 – 2005.2 • Construction: 2005.3 – 2006.1
More details: Site Coverage Area: 162.3 m2 • Building-to-Land Ratio: 25.0% • Floor Area Ratio: 42.2% • Building Scope: 2F, B1 • Structure: RC • Finish: Red cedar shingle, Cobble stone paving, Sedum
Client: Insuk Jung • Geoungmi Lee
Project by: Mass Studies
Team: Project team: Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park, Joungwon Lee, Vin Kim, Bumhee Han, Jongseo Kim, Bumhyun Chun, Deayung Kim, Jieun Lee, Sookyung Kang
Others: Structural Engineer: Millenium Structures • MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers • Construction: Hanurim Construction

Project images

Designer's statement

Chipped House is a 99-pyeong building in Heyri built for a family. The site where this house will be located has a few unusual and intricate features:

When accessed from the main entrance of the Heyri complex, Chipped House is located on a cul-de-sac in the southernmost part of Heyri, situated in the deepest part among several routes forking out among mountains in the north of the complex. At the same time, this site is a boundary facing the outside, and it thus faces an external road in the south opposite the cul-de-sac, completely exposed to the external four-lane road. Moreover, opposite the road, an English-language village is being built at a rapid pace. This building's location is thus both the beginning and the end, located in a distinctive border area where quietness and crowdedness co-exist.
The site is a sloping area facing northward, with the external roadside in the south higher by a floor (3m) than the area in the north.
The site is irregular, with acute angles that face westward, as it is located in the starting area where plots, which are generally divided in rectangles along the road, started to be divided in a radial shape with the cul-de-sac at its center.

On the first basement floor there is a semi-basement parking lot accessible from the road in the north, which is possible due to the difference in level between south and north, and an entrance foyer in the northeastern corner.

The first floor has a common use area via a stairway built along the northern part of the building interior connected to the entrance foyer, by which one can gain access to the first floor, the main level. The rectangular plane facing east to west comprises a block located in the north-western corner designed as a service space consisting of a kitchen, utility room and bathroom, and a block designed as an A/V room in the south-eastern corner. These two blocks structurally support the upper two levels. The remaining irregular space peripheral to the center on the first floor is an open space where one can enjoy the distant scenery of Heyri obliquely in the north-eastern side while avoiding a view of neighboring buildings from the north, encouraging people to view the garden planned in the south-western surplus space rather than the external road directly to the south. Along with this north-east--south-west sight line an open interior space, functioning as a living room and dining room, is suggested. Moreover, the dining area in the south-west is extended to an outside deck and piloti, encouraging the use of a garden in the south-west of the site. In the garden situated in the south of the level facing the external road, short bamboo trees are closely planted, serving as a barrier against the outside.

The second floor family room/study, connected to the downstairs by a stairway, bisects the rectangular plane of the second floor with a master bedroom in the west and two bedrooms and a bathroom in the east. Unlike the first floor of common use space in which a diagonal spatial flow was created in consideration of surrounding conditions seen from the house, the second floor has a much better view, as it is higher and is simply composed of rectangular-shaped spaces. In the family room in the center the perspective faces a south-north direction and is extended to an external terrace in the south. The external terrace, located in the southern center of the second floor, is also a space connected to a rooftop.

The roof on the slope area, created due to standards limiting building height on a slope in the Heyri guidelines is landscaped with sedum, producing an artificial landscape. There is another terrace in south-eastern corner on the rooftop level connected by a stairway from the second floor terrace. With a landscaped area on the rooftop as a short-range view, the terrace is a space with the best views in the house, overlooking the whole landscape of Heyri.

In summary, this house has different external spaces on all four levels, and a vertical spiral movement connects the levels and the inside and outside, providing diverse perspectives. Rooms partitioned on the first and second floors, which are not directly accessed by this spiral movement, also feature varied corners/project windows that can optimize, if necessary, sight lines independent from the direction of space in each room, attracting attention.