Nonhyeon-dong, around Hakdong Station, is one of the busiest business districts in Gangnam. New buildings keep appearing here, and the image of the area keeps changing. The question was how an old building could take part in that change without being demolished.

The building was first completed in 1987 in reddish-brown brick, with long horizontal windows. In 2010 it was refitted: the windows were closed off and a monumental, decorative facade of uncertain intent was attached. The building lost its openness and its ventilation, and for many years it was occupied by a clinic for which the outside world hardly mattered. When the project began in 2022, two directions were set: the building should be able to accept a wide range of programmes, and it should once again be able to look outward.

Gangnam was planned in large blocks. Along the main roads buildings enjoy open frontage and height; behind them, in the side streets, buildings grew up low, narrow and crowded. In such a city a view is not something everyone can own, yet looking out is natural, even instinctive. We wanted to return that view to the building.

The original long horizontal openings were neither covered nor damaged but kept, and made into the main element of the elevation. A simple band of windows alone has little effect, so on each floor a new material steps slightly forward of the facade, and together with the horizontal openings this gives the elevation a stronger emphasis. A structure added on the roof extends the facade vertically and makes up for the building being somewhat lower than its neighbours. Finally, a rough-textured element was added as an object on the elevation, giving the building a more varied character.

Inside, the stairs are wrapped in timber and white surfaces, and light is drawn in through narrow openings. The rooftop becomes a terrace framed by the extended facade, opening onto the surrounding city.

Over almost forty years the building had been altered until its first appearance disappeared. The renovation does not erase that history; it recovers the horizontal openings of the original and gives them a new role, so that an old building in a changing neighbourhood can face the street again.