TURTLE Architects | 60 sqm, one-story country house in Gaocheng District, Korea

Construction begins with the site, just as salmon must return to the place where they were born, so do humans tend to return to where they were born. This is a slow inertia that spans about 90 years. Our client was born in Goseong, Gyeongsangnam-do (Gyeongsangnam-do High Town) and spent his childhood here. The client used to work in Seoul and is now ready to return to spend the latter half of his life. After his parents died, he commissioned us to design a house to prepare for life after retirement. Considering that the land has been inherited by eight generations, we focused on site analysis prior to design. The site has a traditional Korean log house, where the client's ancestors lived.

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Through consultation with our clients, we decided to demolish the house and build a new one using traditional building materials such as wood, roof tiles and foundation stone. A unique element of this land is its ancient wells and stone gates. This well has existed since the time of the customer's ancestors. And at that time, this village was the tribal village of Jeonju Choi family, so it was well used by all family members. Customers say that the well can not be cluttered and wanted to use it as a design element of the new house. There is a stone gate next to the well. We don't know why, but it is said that there was a stone gate on the land before the client was born. We decided to use both this well and the stone gate as building elements.
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Design logic

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Through consultation with our customers, we work to classify what to eliminate on the site and what to keep. The terraced form of the site was originally prominent after the demolition of a site with wells, stone pits, trees and traditional houses. We decided to create a yard of different heights without spoiling the appearance of the site. In particular, the well has been set as a key theme for this project. Therefore, from the very beginning of the design, the axis of the drawing and the working point of the construction are also carried out on the basis of this well. On the north side of the site, you can see many recently built cottages. On the other hand, reservoirs and mountains are distributed on the south side of the site. Therefore, when planning the arrangement, we plan to open the building as far south as possible. Curved House — The site is low and surrounded by Bonghwa Mountain (in units of Mount Hua). We imagined a low and tall house to match the mountain. The house is naturally open to nature to the south, curving along the shape of the site. The corner of the house in particular is planned according to the beech tree grown by the client's ancestors, so this tree can be seen from any window in the house. 3 YARDS — A VARIETY OF HEIGHTS ARE PLANNED USING THE TERRACED FORM OF THE EXISTING SITE.

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It is named according to the characteristics of the yard and is closely connected to the house. A low-rise courtyard built on the site of a traditional old house, it was planned as a space for many people to gather. Deal with shading and noise from the outside with floors 60 cm lower than the ground and walls 2 meters high. And since it is large enough, it can serve as a place to hold a memorial service for this family. The yard where the well and stone gate are located is the middle area connecting the kitchen and the upper level yard, with the focus on scenery rather than function. It aims to make the kitchen feel like an art gallery, where water wells and stone doors can be seen through the windows and the 15-meter-long bare concrete wall from inside to outside. Walk through the yard and you will find the courtyard above, which is 1 meter higher than the level of the 1st floor. There is a clove tree and the yard is surrounded by a 2-meter-high slope, as a private area.
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Open and Close Spaces

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When planning the arrangement, consider opening the natural environment of the south as much as possible and close the direction of the village to the north. Therefore, in the planning of the window, there is also a high window on the north side so that you can see the peaks and the sky, while the south window can be opened as much as possible through a fully open window. The windows on the south side are designed to be fully opened or closed as needed through the shutters. The amount of sunlight can be adjusted through these doors. For customers who have a lot of visitor requests, the plan is to divide it into the space used by the client and the space used by the client through the corner of the house. A living room and a kitchen are placed between the customer's space and the guest's space, a sliding door is placed between each space, separating the space as needed, and the unused space is closed to improve energy efficiency.
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Traditional heating system

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The space specially requested by customers is a sauna room. Based on the background that this place has been passed down through the generations, we agreed to make the sauna room a traditional “Gudul-bang”. Gudul is a traditional Korean heating system, a room paved with flat stones heated by underfloor heating. This is the same principle as the heating plates used mainly for baths in ancient Greco-Roman culture. However, considering that this is a modern house, in consultation with experts, traditional heating systems and modern heating systems coexist in the details of its construction.

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