Urbanhive | Kim In Cheurl

Urbanhive - CONCEPT, image courtesy of Kim In Cheurl

Korean architect Kim In Cheurl designed the innovative Urbanhive tower located in Seoul, South Korea.Urbanhive is a 17 levels of 70 meter high tower with white exposed concrete and contextually sits on the corner of the street within the urban matrix, featuring the perforated architectural façade.

The holes in the skin are designed to be a method of looking at the city from the space, an architecture that can also be enjoyed from the city.

Kim In Cheurl

+ Project description courtesy of Kim In Cheurl

Prosody of place – Buildings make places and places form the urban landscape

Urbanhive - ELEVATION, drawing courtesy of Kim In Cheurl

Urbanhive, image © Park Young Chea

Urbanhive is a17-storied, 70 metre tower with white exposed concrete and contextually sits on the corner of the street within the urban matrix. The red brick tower designed by Mario Botta stands on the adjacent corner of the street, creating a landmark place in the city.

The urban matrix consists of latitude and longitude, these lines of origin will cross paths and meet. Urban energy is gathered at these points. Not only the physical energy concentrated and spreading, but also the symbolic energy of the co-ordinates of urban space concentrates at these points.

Urbanhive, image © Park Young Chea

Urbanhive; a punched concrete box is an element in the matrix, creating urban landscape and consequently making a relation between the place and the city.

Purity of concrete with monolithic simplicity catches the floating city for a moment, exposing the architectural structure and reversing the curtain wall (a skin wrapping a space).

The holes in the skin are designed to be a method of looking at the city from the space, an architecture that can also be enjoyed from the city.

Looking at the landscape of a city from a sequence of framed view enables us to discover new meaning of daily life.

The transparent glass screen, separated from structural holes, is only to maintain the internal conditions, not to serve as a window.

Urbanhive, image courtesy of Kim In Cheurl

The circular cell placed diagonally reduces weight of a rectangular tube, reinforced concrete structure.

The cast are made of P.O steel using a laser cutting machine and packed with high strength high flow concrete.

Urbanhive, image © Park Young Chea

Exposed concrete is not only an external material creating an architectural façade, but it can also be the finishing material for interiors.

Interiors identified with exteriors blur the line between in and out.

Although it is a multi storied building, there is not an entrance hall or lobby.

A point where a building meets a city, it introduces a series of new spaces; voids and massing.

The open space spreading in and out of the building is a public space.

People can be directly connected to their own space form an urban road.

Urbanhive, image © Park Young Chea

The corridor of each floor is open to the outside as if an urban road is extended.

The subway is linked from B2 floor and its entrance is covered as a part of Urbanhive.

+ Project credits / data

Architect: Kim In Cheurl
Project: Urbanhive
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Photography: © Park Young Chea

+ All images and drawings courtesy of Kim In Cheurl | Photo by Park Young Chea

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Radiance / PROJECTiONE

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Working collectively, four graduate students have transformed their clients’ traditional and rarely used fireplace into something completely new. Entitled Radiance, the project is intended to exploit the traditional qualities of the hearth by re-centering the focus of the home around a contemporary ambient environment. The clients’ background, one an artist and the other an architect, allowed this project to become more of “a commissioned artwork rather than a client-based architectural intervention” – an opportunity that truly allowed PROJECTiONE to further their theories and interest in their plyLight sketch prototype.

More about the project, including images, after the break.

Inspired by the form, geometry, and organizational structure of shelf mushrooms, a series of pods – a radial set of 16 plastic components with an LED and a Passive Infrared Sensor – was arranged within an abstracted system. A Grasshopper definition was developed to create the overall pattern and generate final fabrication files, including toolpaths for acrylic and MDF milling, as well as wire length calculations for each component.

Kyle Perry

As far as construction, most of the elements were fabricated off site and attached to a metal framework that was erected around the fireplace. The MDF is the structural armature for all wiring, sensors, circuit boards, and plastic components. On the front side, the main LED wiring is exposed to express the organizational pattern while the reverse side contains all sensor, power, and serial wiring.

Adam Buente

The 512 LEDs in the pods correspond with 16 different Printed Circuit Boards (designed by the team). The boards have Integrated Circuits (TLC5940NT dip-28, made by Texas Instruments) utilizing Pulse Width Modulation (PWM or dimming), allowing the LEDs to be dimmed individually which creates a subtly varied setting.

Kyle Perry

The elements then pulse slowly out from the center when the sensor is triggered. There are two pulses that occur after triggering a pod’s sensor. A primary ‘pulse’, that fades to full intensity and quickly fades off, followed by a secondary ‘pulse’ which fades on quickly but dims slowly over nearly a minute. This pattern can be interrupted as new users trigger a pulse creating the dynamic lighting affect.

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The lighting effect creates “dynamic changes in intensities across it surface,” providing a constantly changing centerpiece for the home. ”By creating simple geometry and interactions at local levels we could render complex reactions and forms in the overall scheme. Though it was developed and organized through its sub-components, the result is a continuous system which reacts uniformly,” explained the designers.

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Kyle Perry

Kyle Perry

Kyle Perry

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