SPACE April 2025 (No. 689)
Grand prize winning proposal ‘Lot No. 0.5’
On Mar. 1, the final public jury meeting for the Junglim Architecture Award for Student 2025 was held under the theme ‘The Archaeologist and the Inventor’. Fifteen teams proposed their own approaches to ‘re-seeing’ and ‘re-writing’ the built environment. Of those participants, jurors Yang Soo-in (principal, Lifethings) and Lee Sang Yun (professor, Yonsei University) selected five teams as finalists. ‘Suyu-ri 8-1=1’, proposed by Jung Hyunseon, Kim Saeyeon, and Lee Gunhee, presents the method of converting one of eight adjacent houses into a yard to reconstruct a community village. Based on a meticulous process of documenting the existing landscape, they identified architectural elements to remove, preserve, or enhance, and suggested strategies for reuse. ‘Lot No. 0.5’ was proposed by Kim Heejin, Jang Jihoo, and Choi Hyunsoo, and they explored the use of leftover spaces between neighbouring buildings as vertical courtyards. By merging structures, reimagining their junctions as new façades, and reorganising floor plans, the proposal extends beyond spatial use to suggest the potential for expansion. ‘A House Embracing a Retaining Wall’ by Song Chan and Kim Jihoon, leverages the challenging conditions of a retaining wall in sloped residential sites. The team proposed architectural interventions that improve both structural and environmental performance. Through this competition, the students’ explorations of ‘re-writing’ went beyond conventional, building-focused remodeling techniques. By reclassifying everyday architecture and proposing new universal typologies, they demonstrated how architects’ creative solutions can evolve into broader social remedies.
