Vila Calando
Designed by Chiasmus Partners, Yanggu, located in the rugged northeastern countryside of South Korea, has a pristine natural landscape, ironically because its closeness to the front lines of the Korean War discourages urban development. It is regions like these that have been attracting the growing number of Koreans who seek reprieve from the pressures of urban life as their society matures into late capitalism. An architectural model befitting the dreams of those that do return to the countryside would not only mean building less floors, providing proximity to the earth for those escaping from urban high rises, but also architectural answers to more essential ways of life that have long been forgotten due to the industrialization and commercialization of the last century. Photography: Namsun Lee
However, one must not mistake moving beyond the limitations of industrialization for regression to pre-industrial times. One may question the freedom afforded by the idea of the ‘Living machine’ and the ‘Living unit’, which has created a spatial framework of urban life where the value of the ‘product’ is calculated from the floor area, the number of rooms, functionality, and efficiency. Vila Calando still avoids weakness, smallness, and deferment in its treatment of nature, facing it instead with honesty. As an urban standard, it is 450sq meter, consisting of 8 rooms and 4 toilets, but it has only two flowing spaces, connected like a...