area 124 | new geometries

architect: JOHO architecture

location: Gyong gi-Do, South Korea

year: 2010

In Korea for the development of a new town, developers parcel out the land in lots according to the usage such as a business area and a residence area, based on the Building codes. Parking lot zone also gets placed in major site following the business and residence area zoning program. A plot for a parking lot can be planned with cheaper land price and eased regulations than a business area.
However, it has a restriction that the commercial facility-to-parking facility ratio has to be 2 to 8. After all, deriving the land cost and construction cost with very 20% commercial area is the poor reality of Parking lot construction in Korea. This substandard business value causes the parking buildings to be built without any design concerns for lower construction price. Furthermore, a vicious circle of gradually deteriorating surrounding urban environment continues because of the box-shaped boring parking buildings. The Herma parking building was started from a fundamental consideration of current parking lots in Korea.
In order to overcome a realistic limitation of a typical parking building, a new design that can increase the value of commercial facilities, including maximizing the commercial area of the 1st fl oor and changing the front landscaping area into the terrace, was needed.
Through investing in a design that gives emphasis on commercial facilities rather than parking space, the value of the building and the land itself can rise. In other words, through an art gallery-like parking building the owner could get the attractive and high rental condition of the commercial building. Owing to the limit of business program called ‘parking lot’ the construction cost also had lots of business limitations compared with other general buildings. For the economical construction the main structure was decided with the reinforced concrete having been economical from the construction viewpoint at that time, while for reducing the earthwork the basement was minimized and constructed with the method of open-cut. Like this the concrete volume is composed of the most economical form to fill the land. It is the volume to enable the maximum parking number of cars in the floor area ratio by enabling the maximum commercial area within the construction cost with a proper level. The mass fi lled like this was established based on the exhaustive economy.
The front part facing the river is a triangular unit, which is composed with 10 diff erent angles from 60 degrees up to 150 degrees and refl ects the scenes of light and city with the total units of more than 80. Contrarily the back surface of commercial area was fi nished with a fl at surface. While the elevation plane toward the river was intended to express the speed of city by wrinkled image, the fl at surface located in the western side directly projects the image toward Bojeong-dong café alley.
The polycarbonate used in this project has 5 layers. The external part was coated with violet color, and the internal part with white color. Additionally the external part was made with IR Coating and Coating surface treatment, which exerted such a feeling as the refl ective surface of glass or metal depending on the angle of light. In the morning with the sun rising, it receives direct ray whose color of outer cover minutely appears to be white, and at noon indirect one whose color purely violet. In the afternoon with the sun setting, it reflects the evening glow and turns to be golden, while in the evening it reflects the internal lighting and external neon sign and directs unusual scenes.
Design of stainless opening part as a Metaphor
Another characteristic of land is the point that the four surfaces are independently opened without facing different buildings. According to such characteristics of land, the composition of elevation plane was designed to direct various images at each vanishing point.
The opening part composed of stainless pattern consists of respectively diff erent form and pattern at each vanishing point, whose design of automobile grill was applied inspired from the characteristics of this building’s being a facility for cars. As such an opening part is diff erently open on each floor and elevation plane the natural ventilation is available, and it properly projects inside, due to being cut off from the external part it was designed so as not to recognize from outside the fact that this building is a parking lot. The characteristics of exterior design exist in the panel with respectively diff erent sizes individually combined above all. As known from the pattern of elevation plane with various expressions the polycarbonate panels used for 635 units of outer covers are all diff erent in their sizes. Each panel diff ers in size with the spacing of a few centimeters, which was cut and carried in the factory one by one. The maximum length of panel is 12 meters long, due to the maximum specifi cation of container box when imported. Each opening part is less than 12 meters wide, which divides the polycarbonate panel and creates respectively different elevation plane factors.