To the people of Jinan, Lake Yongdam is a landscape intertwined with love and grief. When the reservoir was created, six townships were submerged, stripping generations of inhabitants of their ancestral homes and lands. Behind the lake's picturesque stillness lies the scar tissue of displacement. Witnessing the quiet devotion of those who stayed—adapting to a transformed geography where valleys became lakes and mountain ridges turned into islands—instilled a profound sense of architectural responsibility.
The existing Sucheon Rest Area stood in somber contrast to the surrounding natural beauty. Perched on a promontory with the most commanding view of the reservoir, it felt like an immobilized stranger, unable to comfort grieving locals or offer hospitality to travelers. The project began with the aspiration to restore dignity to this abandoned structure through the archetype of an "Ark"—a vessel anchored between memory and horizon, reflecting on lost ground while ferrying visitors across an inland sea.
To set the vessel afloat, the building first had to be decoupled from the earth. The closed ground level was dismantled, and the remaining structural columns were clad in mirror-finish stainless steel, visually dissolving their presence into reflections of the landscape. Nature naturally reclaims the newly opened void: trees, wild grasses, rocks, and mist occupy the terrain as if regenerating spontaneously from ruins. Beneath the ink-black ceiling of this sheltered underbelly, deep shadows intentionally capture the visitor's immediate gaze before guiding their adjusted eyes across the water toward the panoramic expanse of Lake Yongdam.
Ascending the ramp leads to a modest retail space on the second floor. Because local zoning prohibited food and beverage establishments, the space was reimagined as a communal shelter reminiscent of a traditional Korean village corner shop (gumeonggage). Drawing on the collective memory of conversing on wide wooden platforms (pyeongsang) in the shade of a zelkova tree, half the interior is lined with low wooden decks that extend seamlessly to an exterior veranda (toenmaru). Folding glass doors dissolve the boundary between indoors and outdoors, while beds of white pea gravel and interior vegetation invert conventional spatial hierarchies. Along one wall, stepped display shelves gradually collect Polaroid photographs left by visitors, turning memory into an enduring anchor for return.
The journey culminates on the rooftop, where the architecture opens completely to the horizon where sky meets water. The terrace is dedicated to the traditional ritual of Takjok—the sensory act of soaking one's feet in water. In summer, cool water provides respite; in the colder seasons, warm footbaths offer comfort, engaging nature directly through touch. Immersed in the water while taking in the shimmering ripples (yunseul), exposed sandbars, wind, and birdsong, visitors experience the scarred lake not as a void of loss, but as a generous, embracing presence.
The Yongdam seeks to stand as a vessel of healing for the community of Jinan and a place of quiet hospitality for every traveler who arrives at its shore.
