Muuuz - Webzine Architecture & Design

La maison « Steel Lady » se dresse dans le quartier de Yongsan Itaewon à Seoul. Signé par l’agence d’architecture coréenne Chae-Pereira, son volume simple et bardé de métal dissimule des espaces intérieurs riches et surprenants comme cette cage d’escalier au volume complexe et habillée de bois.

Sur la « Steel Lady House », Chae Songhee et Laurent Pereira précisent:

« This elongated site is situated below Seoul’s panoramic Namsan Road with a very strict height and building ratio limit. Its position and volume gives a dynamic and more open end of this quiet street. The block is actually a bit skewed, and it seems as if the house is trying to say something, while neighboring houses hide behind their high walls.

The interior spaces are created by excavated volumes; the kitchen, dining and living rooms are interlocking, forming a sequence of views and body positions.

The interior of the house is far from monolithic. Indeed, much of it is interlaced and connected through surprising angles.

On the first floor, the living room is connected to the kitchen and dining room, with the longest side being over 14 meters. The staircase penetrates the entire house, offering a profound perspective that unites each and every level. Its complex shape offers both places to sit and spaces to interact, making it an interesting type of “living room.” On the third floor, the master bedroom and the largest bathroom are connected to one another, repeating the same spatial scale and shape as on the first floor.

Window sills are also deep blocks of space that can be used to sit in or even lean against, reviving the traditional Korean way of living close to the floor. From here one can feel the window sill as a fringe space between the interior and the exterior world.

Inside a metal box, there is a concrete box, then a wooden box, then a stone box. The process of excavating a block is further expressed in the articulation of finished materials and details. As the bush-hammered in-situ cast concrete contains teak veneered box-frames and partitions, this also determines the details on the handrail and the choice of fixtures.

The outer surface is a delicate, reflective double layer of different stainless steels, so the house’s blunt shape absorbs the daylight and various colors of its surroundings. Made of a layer of slightly corroded stainless steel, it is doubled with a grid of hand-polished stainless plates.

The house may be a block of steel, but it is a “lady” nonetheless. »

Photographies: Park Wansoon, Nils Clauss, Chae-Pereira Architects

Pour en savoir plus, visitez le site de l’agence d’architecture Chae-Pereira.