On the Act of Making Urban Corners
The Nonhyeon-dong Neighborhood Living Facility project is located on a corner site where inner streets of a megablock intersect. In recent years, especially in the post-COVID era, this neighborhood has experienced a wave of redevelopment, with newly constructed buildings reflecting distinctive architectural intentions. Within this emerging context, we became interested in how buildings engage with the corners of the city.
In contrast to the flamboyant façades competing for visibility in the local rental market, we adopted a strategy of minimal openings. The white façade bends along the edge of the site, forming a continuous planar surface that visually anchors the corner. Finished with an external insulation and finishing system (EIFS), the white wall was envisioned as a moment of visual respite—an interlude amid the variety of materials and forms that dominate the surrounding streetscape.
The base of the building is clad in rough-textured, chipped stone (jongseok-ddeutki), creating a clearly defined horizontal plinth. Above this, the crisp geometric form of the white volume sits atop, asserting its presence. Daylight openings were carefully concealed from sightlines to preserve the purity of the white surfaces.
Carving a Corner Within the Site
The building’s massing, wrapped in white walls, creates yet another corner within the site itself—this time carved inward. This design move stems from a functional consideration: in today’s urban rental market, the availability of exclusive outdoor space, such as terraces, significantly enhances property value. At Nonhyeon-dong, each floor incorporates a modest, private courtyard by recessing the building’s edge to form a concave corner.
To accentuate the contrast with the white urban façade, these inner corners were clad in small, green-glazed tiles. Where the EIFS surface meets the tiled wall, a concealed joint detail was employed to mask the transition—producing a sharp juxtaposition that evokes a sense of the building being incised or cut away.
Infrastructure Hidden from the Corner
The building’s vertical circulation and daylight provisions were intentionally concentrated along the southern edge of the site, away from the public-facing corner. As the stairwell needed to be placed on the southern façade, we opted for a lightweight steel structure instead of a massive concrete core. The open-frame steel stairs, composed of slender linear members, allow daylight to permeate through each level, creating a bright and airy vertical space.
