The imprint at Paradise City
Ossip van Duivenbode

The Imprint at Paradise City

MVRDV as Architects

MVRDV has completed construction on The Imprint, a new 2-building art-entertainment complex in close proximity to Seoul’s Incheon Airport. Featuring a nightclub in one building and indoor theme park in the other, the windowless structures feature three key design elements: imprints of the façade features of surrounding buildings, lifted entrances, and a golden entrance spot covering one corner of the nightclub building.


MVRDV’s The Imprint is part of the larger Paradise City complex of 6 buildings in total, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometre away from South Korea’s largest airport. Given the proposed programme of the 2 buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that still integrated with the other buildings in the complex. The design of The Imprint therefore arises from a simple question: can we design an expressive façade that connects with its surroundings even though it has no windows?


The design achieves this by projecting the façades of the surrounding buildings in the complex, which are ‘draped’ over the simple building forms and plazas like a shadow, and ‘imprinted’ as a relief pattern onto the façades.


“By placing, as it were, surrounding buildings into the facades of our buildings and in the central plaza, we connect The Imprint with the neighbours,” says Winy Maas, principal and co-founder of MVRDV. “This ensures coherence. Paradise City is not a collection of individual objects such as Las Vegas, but a real city.”


In order to achieve the desired ‘imprint’ of the surrounding buildings, the façade of The Imprint is constructed of glass-fibre reinforced concrete panels. As many of the 3,869 panels are unique, the construction required moulds to be individually produced using MVRDV’s 3D modelling files from the design phase. Once installed, these panels were painted white in order to emphasise the relief in the design.


As Winy Maas explains: “Two months ago most of the cladding was done and client said, ‘this is an art piece. What is interesting about that is that they are looking for that momentum—that entertainment can become art or that the building can become artistic in that way. What, then, is the difference between architecture an art? The project plays with that and I think that abstraction is part of it, but it has to surprise, seduce and it has to calm down.”


The entrances, where the façades are lifted like a curtain to reveal mirrored ceilings and glass media floors, exude a sense of the excitement happening inside. “Reflection and theatricality are therefore combined,” concludes Maas. “With our design, after the nightly escapades, a zen-like silence follows during the day, providing an almost literally reflective situation for the after parties. Giorgio de Chirico would have liked to paint it, I think."


Credit List

 

Architect: MVRDV

Principal-in-charge: Winy Maas

Partner: Wenchian Shi

Design Team: María López Calleja with Daehee Suk, Xiaoting Chen, Kyosuk Lee, Guang Ruey Tan, Stavros Gargaretas, Mafalda Rangel, and Dong Min Lee

Photography: Ossip van Duivenbode

Copyright: MVRDV 2018 – (Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries)

 

Partners

 

Co-Architect: GANSAM Architects & Partners, South Korea

Façade Consultant: VS-A Group Ltd

Panelization Consultant: WITHWORKS

GFRC: Techwall

Lighting: L’Observatoire International


Project Credits
Manufacturers
Architects
Panelization Consultant
Products used in this project
Product Spec Sheet

ElementBrandProduct name
ManufacturersKEIM
Product Spec Sheet
Products Behind Projects
Product Spotlight
News
Fernanda Canales designs tranquil “House for the Elderly” in Sonora, Mexico
12 Dec 2024 News
Fernanda Canales designs tranquil “House for the Elderly” in Sonora, Mexico

Mexican architecture studio Fernanda Canales has designed a semi-open, circular community center for... More

Australia’s first solar-powered façade completed in Melbourne
12 Dec 2024 News
Australia’s first solar-powered façade completed in Melbourne

Located in Melbourne, 550 Spencer is the first building in Australia to generate its own electricity... More

SPPARC completes restoration of former Victorian-era Army & Navy Cooperative Society warehouse
11 Dec 2024 News
SPPARC completes restoration of former Victorian-era Army & Navy Cooperative Society warehouse

In the heart of Westminster, London, the London-based architectural studio SPPARC has restored and r... More

Green patination on Kyoto coffee stand is brought about using soy sauce and chemicals
10 Dec 2024 News
Green patination on Kyoto coffee stand is brought about using soy sauce and chemicals

Ryohei Tanaka of Japanese architectural firm G Architects Studio designed a bijou coffee stand in Ky... More

New building in Montreal by MU Architecture tells a tale of two facades
10 Dec 2024 News
New building in Montreal by MU Architecture tells a tale of two facades

In Montreal, Quebec, Le Petit Laurent is a newly constructed residential and commercial building tha... More

RAMSA completes Georgetown University's McCourt School of Policy, featuring unique installations by Maya Lin
10 Dec 2024 News
RAMSA completes Georgetown University's McCourt School of Policy, featuring unique installations by Maya Lin

Located on Georgetown University's downtown Capital Campus, the McCourt School of Policy by Robert A... More

MVRDV-designed clubhouse in shipping container supports refugees through the power of sport
9 Dec 2024 News
MVRDV-designed clubhouse in shipping container supports refugees through the power of sport

MVRDV has designed a modular and multi-functional sports club in a shipping container for Amsterdam-... More

Archello Awards 2025 expands with 'Unbuilt' awards categories
9 Dec 2024 Archello Awards
Archello Awards 2025 expands with 'Unbuilt' project awards categories

Archello is excited to introduce a new set of twelve 'Unbuilt' project awards for the Archello Award... More