SPACE August 2025 (No. 693)
‘The moment you step through the door, you’re met with a story—crafted by the atmosphere and space left behind by a host with an exceptional eye for detail.’
Z_Lab is committed to designing narratives where a work of architecture is completed through experience – situated between the everyday and the extraordinary – primarily through the medium of stays. Over the past ten years, their work has played a significant role in establishing the stay as an independent genre with its own place in the market. Reflecting on the spaces they have created mainly in Jeju, SPACE spoke with them about the development, evolution, and future of the stay. Editor
Blind Whale (2014) consists of two time‑worn stone houses that were refurbished to become one ‘stay’. To retain each house’s unique atmosphere, the exterior was left virtually untouched and only the roof was replaced. ©Kim Jaekyeong
Interview Noh Kyungrok co-principal, Z_Lab, Kang Haecheon principal, Z_Lab Architects × Bang Yukyung
Bang Yukyung (Bang): Z_Lab started as a design studio in 2014 and has grown over the past ten years by designing stays, cafés, and more in Jeju. I heard you’ve created over 50 spaces in Jeju. How did you come to base your practice in Jeju?
Noh Kyungrok (Noh): We didn’t have any particular ties or personal connection to Jeju. In 2013, we worked on a project called TORi Cottage (IKLAMP) at the request of Lee Changgil (leader, Gaehangro Project), and through that, the three of us – myself, Lee Sangmuk, and Park Junghyun, who were college seniors and juniors – came together to found Z_Lab in January 2014. As the spaces we created in Jeju began to attract attention, we were able to continue working there. Jeju is not only one of Korea’s top tourist destinations but also a place with a very strong local character, which makes it commercially unique. Naturally, in the process of forming our own design language and identity, we were heavily influenced by Jeju.
Bang: Kang Haecheon, who now leads the architectural division, joined Z_Lab in 2018, when the firm had established its position in the industry. What was the situation at that time?
Noh: It was a time when Z_Lab was growing both in volume and internally through business diversification. After Z_Lab opened, the STAYFOLIO – a stay curation platform – was founded in April 2015. According to the personalities and roles of the three co-founders, we created a system where three areas, architectural design, accommodation platform operation, and brand design and styling, coexisted under the umbrella of Z_Lab. Later, in order to secure expertise and expand our business, we officially separated STAYFOLIO and established Z_Lab Architects in April 2018. That’s when we asked Kang Haecheon, a junior from university, to help with the architecture division.
Kang Haecheon (Kang): At the time, I was in my eighth year of practice, and having mainly designed modern buildings in urban settings after graduating, I thought Z_Lab’s direction was quite different from mine. (laugh) In particular, in Blind Whale (2014), they remodeled two stone houses into a stay, and for one of the roofs, they removed everything but the rafters and added a steel truss frame on top—without any precise measurements. Coming from a world where architecture is defined by quantitative figures, drawings, and dimensions, I was amazed and fascinated to see them stacking stones to form fences and walls and creating roof structures without any drawings.
Noh: In Blind Whale, we photographed the old houses to reproduce the existing roofline and then created drawings based on the photos to build it on-site. It wasn’t a shape derived from drawings, but rather a shape that was turned into a drawing; if you look closely, the symmetry is off and some parts are even warped. I think we felt a kind of beauty in the primitive forms of the imperfect houses built under the unique conditions of Jeju. After Kang, who had strong on-site experience, joined us, we saw changes in detail and quality. The harmony between the locality and site sensibility we had before and his modern touch helped our work evolve.
Jocheon Masil (2019) is a ‘stay’ created by remodeling a 200‑year‑old stone house (doljip) that still preserves the archetypal form of a traditional Jeju stone house. Bearing the traces of the generations who once lived here, the house was designed so that guests can slip into everyday Jocheon life ‘like a casual stroll through the village’. ©Lee Byunggeun
Situated on the Jocheon shoreline – where the tide ebbs and flows twice a day – Jocha (2023) employs low‑chroma, dark‑toned materials that are in harmony with the blackened coastal rock and subdued character of the village. Charred cedar (yakisugi) clads the exterior, while the interiors use iron‑patinated slate, basalt, and granite, each worked with a different finish.©moble
Noh: For an architect, locality is the basic
premise of design. Since college, it’s always been a given that when a site is
assigned, we begin by researching its context, history, and environment. Jeju, in
particular, is a place where there’s an implicit understanding that it’s okay –
even expected – to bring out its distinct regional character. Early on, we
tried to express this through direct and physical elements like form
(rooflines, stone walls) and materials (wood, stone). Over time, though, our
approach expanded to spatial organisation, site layout, and scale—ways of
breathing with the village. We’ve come to value an attitude and approach that
doesn’t disrupt the local atmosphere. In particular, standalone stays have the
advantage of accommodating small groups, which means they don’t bring drastic
changes to everyday life or scenery the way hotels or resorts might.
Kang: When designing within a village, we
try to read the logic embedded in the surroundings—from the overall scale and
arrangement of buildings, to traditional patterns like angeori, bakgeori (spatial
structure divided into the inner and outer quarters), or gopang (granaries).
Take Stay Nureut (2024), which was built in the forested mid-mountain region of
Jeju. All we had to work with were trees, buckwheat fields, and sky. So, when
we were asked to design a multi-unit stay there, we didn’t want to impose an
artificial, clustered village. Instead, we felt it was right to keep the layout
and building mass low and gentle, blending with the topography and landscape.
Interior views of Jocha. Jocha’s name carries a double meaning – ‘a short span of time’ and ‘tidal range’ – reflecting the desire to capture ever‑changing scenery in fleeting moments. Three volumes of differing heights open up varied sea vistas. A kitchen‑living area with a basalt threshold. ©Moon Sungjoo
Interior views of Jocha. A vertical study connected to the bedroom by a loft(right) and a spa where the ocean can be viewed close to ground level(left). ©moble
Noh: A house is designed by reinterpreting the lifestyle of a clearly defined client. But in the case of a stay, we’re the ones proposing and conceptualising what kind of experience the space should offer—so it’s fundamentally a different programme. While the elements may have the same names – entrance, living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom – the facility is so different that it could be classified apart from residential buildings, closer to a commercial programme. Some architects use cafés as test beds to explore their architectural logic, aesthetics, or to push experiential boundaries, but with stays, I think what matters is moderating those extremes. A space where someone sleeps and spends an entire day can’t be treated the same as a place they only visit for an hour or two.
Kang: Since a user’s length of stay changes how the space is experienced, we tend to approach the notion of time with particular care when designing stays. From check-in to check-out, we consider the changing scenery of morning, day, evening, night, and dawn—and what kind of experience we want to propose for each of those moments.
Janwol (2021) stands in Myeongwol‑ri, one of Jeju’s most historic villages. From the village entrance, 400‑ to 500‑year‑old hackberry trees line the road, and scholars once enjoyed poetry at the nearby Myeongwol Seongji Site and Myeongwoldae. Respecting this heritage, Janwol was designed not to look ‘brand‑new’. A long roof shelters three zones – spa, living, and bedroom – while voids between them form wind corridors. At the heart of the plan, an open daecheong‑maru (veranda) faces the entrance to an olle trail and adjoining fields; reclaimed timber from local traditional houses was reused for its flooring so visitors would be able to sense the passage of time. To preserve native hackberry and camellia trees, the building’s footprint was adjusted and eave lines cut back. ©Janwol
The spa area pairs a sauna lined with charred timber and a walled concrete garden oriented toward greenery to promote total relaxation. ©Janwol
Noh: In the context of a stay, I think ‘experience’ is largely about lifestyle. It’s a space that serves as a stage for activities that bring inspiration, energy, or a sense of renewal into one’s life. The experiences we propose – gardening, walking, meditation, yoga, tea rituals, reading – are communicated through a complex relationship with the space itself. In some cases, like Jocha (2023), where the site sits right in front of the ocean and the architectural response is largely determined by the layout, we start by resolving strong elements like the landscape, environment, axis, and level. From there, we work backwards to discover what kind of experience we want to offer, and that leads to specific design details and ideas. We also gather feedback from our team, completing the experiential proposal through a kind of collective intelligence.
Kang: There are many layers through which to experience design. The way people engage with a space inevitably changes depending on whether they’re spending a night by the sea or in the middle of a field. In the latter case, you have to create a reason to come. For instance, at Shisao House Jeju (2025), that might be the large open-air bath and the garden; at Janwol (2021), it’s the reed garden and the trees. These elements become part of the experience. At that point, we mobilise all tools at our disposal—architectural vocabulary like striking skylights or long, low-set windows, and both direct and indirect devices that offer either the extraordinary or the subtly unusual. In Jocha, we wanted to go one step further from the typical ‘room with a view and a spa’ by introducing the idea of a fleeting moment – challa – as a narrative.
Bedroom area. Inside Janwol, every item – the furniture, curtains, lighting, scent, objects – has been carefully tuned by experience design. The bedroom is finished in dark tones and designed with a deliberately lowered eye line to evoke calm. Windows are set high and a low frame surrounding the trees offers multiple viewpoints. ©Janwol
Living area. ©Janwol
Kang: The three of us have very different travel styles, and I think that diversity helps us design more unique experiences by complementing one another’s perspectives. Noh enjoys backpacking and staying at hostels in remote places. Park prefers high-design, service-focused hotels in cities like New York and Paris. I’m more drawn to boutique hotels in Northern Europe. The convergence of these differing tastes and experiences is what defines Z_Lab’s work. It feels like we’re creating a new genre that doesn’t quite fit into any existing market category—somewhere between the extremes. We’ve also noticed a shift in our clients. After experiencing our stays, they come to us with highly specific requests: adding an open-air bath to an urban home, making the kitchen the center of the house, or removing the living room altogether. Residential design is evolving in line with more personalised lifestyles.
Noh: It’s clear that stays have become a medium for lifestyle transformation. As architects, we often sense those changes when designing homes for our clients. Take Areumjip (2024), for instance. The client, who also operates stays, explicitly asked us to design a ‘home that feels like a stay’ as their second home. It wasn’t just about adding a garden, an outdoor pool, or a spa. We also curated the experience down to the details – welcome cards, coffee and tea selection, books and music curation – so the feeling of being warmly received extends throughout the space. The result sits somewhere between a private residence and a stay.
You can see more information on the SPACE No. August (2025).
Noh Kyungrok
Noh Kyungrok graduated from Sungkyunkwan University with a degree in architectural engineering and began his career at the architectural firm 2105. In 2014, he co-founded Z_Lab with Lee Sangmuk and Park Junghyun, leading the team to uncover regional identities through a total design approach. In 2015, he co-founded the stay platform STAYFOLIO, and currently serves as co-principal of Z_Lab, overseeing its architectural division.
Kang Haecheon
Kang Haecheon earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architectural engineering from Sungkyunkwan University. He spent six years at See Architects before founding flat1103 in 2016, where he focused on small-scale residential and commercial projects. He joined Z_Lab in 2018 and now serves as principal of Z_Lab Architects. He also teaches as an adjunct professor in the department of architecture at Sungkyunkwan University.
Z_Lab
Z_Lab is a design collective that builds places and spaces anchored in personal narratives. Their scope spans planning, branding, architectural design, spatial design, and styling—all with the aim of offering new interpretations and experiences of what it means to stay somewhere. Architectural design is led by Noh Kyungrok, while brand and styling direction is overseen by Park Junghyun. Since 2018, the team has collaborated through a licensed architecture office, Z_Lab Architects. Notable projects include Around Follie, Owol School, Janwol, Breathe Hotel Yangyang, and Stay Nureut.
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