Hyangrindongsan in Dongbaek-dong, Yongin, is an established residential enclave where detached houses are scattered along the edge of forested slopes. Positioned according to the natural topography, the houses, retaining walls, trees, and level changes overlap to create layered visual connections, guiding the eye from intimate gardens toward the distant landscape. Located midway up the hillside, the site naturally frames views of the surrounding village and woodland.
The design began with the idea of creating a circular courtyard. At the center of the house, an open round courtyard is carved toward the sky, enclosed by walls and a continuous roof that wrap around it in a single curved gesture. Rather than exposing the surrounding landscape directly, this circular frame filters and mediates it, drawing light, wind, and the changing sky into the living environment. In this sense, it recalls the spatial experience beneath the eaves of traditional architecture. The landscape is not presented as an endless panorama but becomes more intimate within a defined boundary, while the courtyard becomes not merely an exterior space but the heart of daily family life.
The project draws significant inspiration from Alvar Aalto’s Experimental House, particularly in its integration of architecture, walls, and outdoor spaces within a single formal language. Here, the perimeter wall is conceived not as a boundary marker but as an extension of the architecture itself. Curved walls emerge naturally from the building and enclose the courtyard, creating a private outdoor realm. The main house, the annex, the courtyard, and the walls are connected as part of a continuous spatial flow. As a result, the house appears less as a collection of separate buildings than as a unified landscape.
The residence consists of a main house for the parents and a smaller annex for their two daughters. Reinterpreting the increasingly rare notion of the detached annex, the design seeks to balance independence and proximity within a single household, much like the spatial organization found in traditional Korean houses. Positioned at different levels along the slope, the annex gently screens views toward the main house from the street, while the main house enjoys views beyond the annex roof toward the village and surrounding mountains. This sectional arrangement recalls traditional architecture such as Byeongsan Seowon, where the gaze pauses at nearby structures and gardens before extending toward the distant landscape.
Separated yet reunited beneath a single curved roof, the two volumes are tied together through a continuous architectural gesture. Flowing along the contours of the site, the roof unifies buildings, walls, and courtyard into a coherent whole. The curvature initiated outside continues into the interior walls, ceilings, and staircases, creating a sense of spatial continuity throughout the house. Each floor slab functions as a deck that receives and frames the landscape. Inspired by the experience of sitting in a daecheongmaru or pavilion, the project reinterprets the act of inhabiting the threshold between interior and exterior within a contemporary domestic environment. Through large curved openings, the surrounding mountains and village are gradually drawn into the house.
Rather than pursuing an iconic form, the project focuses on the continuous relationships between family life, courtyard, landscape, and vision. Different generations maintain an appropriate degree of independence while remaining loosely connected beneath a shared roof, with the courtyard serving as the center of collective daily life.
Boundaries Revealed Through Occupation
In June 2026, I had the opportunity to revisit the house.
It was the season when the forests of Dongbaek-dong were at their deepest green. Passing through the gate and ascending the gentle slope, the white house emerged among the surrounding residences.
Although it retained much of the atmosphere I remembered from its completion, the house had begun to acquire something new—the accumulated time of habitation.
In this project, physical boundaries were intentionally minimized not only through architectural elements but also through material continuity. The stucco applied to the exterior walls extends seamlessly into the interior, continuing across walls and built-in furnishings. The entrance threshold is eliminated, and the glazed enclosure allows interior and exterior to connect gradually. The transition between inside and outside is not explicitly marked but perceived through subtle changes in air, light, and movement.
Responding to this continuity, the material palette was organized around earth tones, avoiding elements with strong visual boundaries. The wooden kitchen positioned opposite the entrance does not assert itself as an object but stands quietly within the spatial flow. Furniture and architecture were conceived not as competing elements but as a continuous topography.
Yet the disappearance of physical boundaries does not imply the disappearance of distance.
Once occupied, the family naturally established their own territories. There are moments of gathering and moments of separation. While the house contains few explicit partitions, a distinct sense of distance nevertheless exists.
Particularly memorable were the words of the client:
"The way the morning sunlight enters, the feeling of vision bending around corners, the movement of walking through the house, the emotions evoked by looking into the courtyard, and the sensation of being inside a round universe when looking up at the night sky."
This was not an explanation prepared by the designer but an accumulation of sensations acquired through inhabitation.
In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard writes that “our house is our corner of the world... it is our first universe” (Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964, p.4). For Bachelard, the house is not merely a collection of functions but a place where sensations and memories accumulate over time.
What became apparent through occupation was that boundaries are not defined solely by walls and doors. Rather, they emerge through movement, vision, and the overlapping presence of others.
In this house, curvature is not a formal gesture. It operates as a spatial mediator that regulates family relationships, supporting independent places of belonging while maintaining an awareness of one another's presence. Architecture is not completed at the moment of construction; it begins to cultivate new relationships the moment it is inhabited. Design, therefore, is not simply the creation of form but the design of distance and atmosphere.
The resident's description of living within a “round universe” was not accidental. Each family member follows an individual orbit. They move closer, drift apart, and meet again. Through this repetition, the house becomes a world of its own.
The name THE ORB does not refer merely to a spherical form. Rather, it describes a condition in which multiple trajectories of daily life intersect around a shared center. The circular courtyard acts as that center, while architecture provides the framework that supports these relationships. Family life continues to evolve along these overlapping orbits.
In this sense, the house is not a completed object but a relational field—one that is continuously renewed through the act of living.
