Under the slogan 'Sapo, ó sapo, leve a casa velha e me dê uma nova,' an Anglo-American couple who lived in Dubai decided to build a house in the Seochon area. Since they had lived outside Korea for a long time, the traditional hanok was not a familiar type of housing for them, but they encountered it for the first time.
The plot is an irregular parcel with a long, narrow setback resembling a pipe. Although the northern end, facing the alley, could serve as the main entrance, the entrance was located on the west side to ensure a southern courtyard and daecheong. At first glance, the surroundings look residential, but in reality, this area is densely occupied by commercial establishments, including cafes, restaurants, and hanok-style guesthouses. The existing hanok was significantly altered and damaged, which complicated its reconstruction or reuse.
Although the project involved new construction, the task was to respect the urban context integrated into the existing hanok and to form an internal domestic space isolated from the surrounding commercial environment. The layout and circulation of the building were preserved, but an additional level was added to ensure privacy. Simultaneously, the banchim were horizontally expanded, allowing the density of daily life to be maintained. The usable area and overall volume were adjusted to avoid excessive density, while spaces such as numaru and bongang were incorporated to soften the building's volume.
'Layering and Emptying' – The first floor is organized around the entrance, living room, and kitchen. The site of the old main gate is left open as a bongang. With finishes made of earth or lime, instead of wooden floors or ondol, the bongang functions as a transitional space connecting the alley, the house, and the courtyard. The old daecheong and kitchen were reinterpreted as a modern living room and kitchen, while preserving the original hanok layout that allows natural light to penetrate evenly throughout the house around the courtyard.
At the threshold where windows and doors meet, a stone floor extending from the base of the building creates the feeling of a small yet spacious courtyard. The dining table is placed in the center of the daecheong so that it faces the courtyard entirely, and the partition wall is designed not only as a boundary but also as an independent aesthetic element. The staircase is circular, simultaneously connecting two other axes of the house and optimizing space usage. Ascending it offers a view of the entire section of the house and serves as an observation deck overlooking the surrounding landscape of Bugaksan and Inwangsan.
The second floor includes an entryway, master bedroom, numaru, and a bathroom with a shower. By exposing the beams, the rooms remain open and are perceived as a single space, while the flooring differs depending on the nature of each zone. The entryway and bathroom are finished with stone, remaining cool in summer and retaining the warmth of the ondol in winter, whereas the bedroom uses a traditional Korean paper covering to enhance the sense of coziness. The numaru is formed from woven umulmaru flooring built using traditional methods.
In a hanok, emptiness is as important as enclosed space. Even with the constraints of a narrow plot, the project aimed to create spaces for relaxation. On the first floor, a depth of emptiness is created, extending from the bongang to the inner courtyard. On the second floor, a corresponding volume is subtracted and replaced by the numaru, bringing light and scenery inside. No banchim were placed along the north side, allowing the entire alley to be illuminated by daylight. These empty spaces are intended to be filled later with depth and a serene sense of abundance.
The hanok we usually imagine is defined by a spacious courtyard, deep roof eaves, open wooden structure, and white walls. However, the density of development within the walled city began to increase as the population grew towards the end of the Joseon period. After the opening of Korean ports, materials such as brick became more accessible and widespread, leading to the rise of hybrid architecture combining them with traditional wooden construction. Although many of these buildings disappeared during subsequent urban reorganization, the practice of combining traditional building methods with new materials persisted, expressed in urban hanoks built on subdivided plots.
These hybrid hanoks, characterized by fire-resistant brick walls, glazed doors, and metal roofs, represented an emerging type of urban residential development during that era. Seochon was one of the areas where they developed in particularly high concentration. Many of these houses were lost due to development after the liberation of Korea, and those that remained did not fit the image of 'refined tradition.' Thus, the other side of hanoks, shaped by the realities of urban life, gradually disappeared from memory.
In a small alley in Seochon, on a plot of 84.3 square meters, the project seeks to restore the connection to the context of the urban hanok that was gradually disappearing. Instead of reproducing a ready-made image of tradition, the project overlays the time of hanoks, shaped and accumulated by urban life, onto current conditions. This establishes a virtual continuity between past and present, an unfinished line of hanoks.