Located in Seoul, this project serves as the new Obzee Headquarters for the various fashion lines that the company owns under its larger brand. The company seeks to expand its studio spaces, and in doing so create an opportunity to establish a link between the new the brand and its corresponding architecture. Thus, this project is dedicated to spatializing, materializing, and fabricating a relationship with the sartorial craft, while also inventing a new icon within the city with which Obzee can be associated.
The main goal was to translate the art of tailoring-- its techniques and its effects-- to the architectural medium in such a way that it formed the basis of an integrative strategy for the building, bringing the structure, cladding, mechanical and iconographic agendas into an organic relationship. Accepting the fundamental difference between structure and skin, we sought to create a symbiotic relationship between the two, using geometry as a vehicle. The structure is triangulated in two rows running on the north/south axis, giving the building simple east/west spanning beams, while offering lateral bracing without the necessity of shear walls. For the skin, we developed a series of parameters that could gauge its geometry in relationship to its desired performance at any given instance. For instance, on the south side, the skin functions as a sun screen; at the same time, its perforations vary in dimension and width in accordance to the spaces to which they correspond, bringing more and less light to work or leisure spaces. The geometry of the massing and the diamond shape geometric unit are brought into a close reciprocity by way of a third technique borrowed from the sartorial craft: pleating. The skin is developed from the same morphological code as the structure, though pleated, folded, and fenestrated to respond to local circumstances—all within a strict language that is guided by the discipline of geometry.
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Status: Unbuilt
Selected Awards:
55th Progressive Architecture Awards, Design Award in Architecture