Water Infrastructures 워터 인프라

Water flows through the city, pipes pierce the ground and buildings and supply the citizens needs. The map studies the differing infrastructures that collect, store and transport water. At street level this movement is recorded and metered via small devices attached to the exterior of buildings. This is another key characteristic of the traditional fabric and one that the Apatu complexes lack. 

A Complete Strategy is needed 전략

Comments from my tutorial with Professor Mull. All stronger and clearer now, looking for a way of doing things, making connections. emulsify? Emulsion has a different quality to it, putting something into a liquid condition, a different conceptual starting point? Little doors interesting, natural tendency is to open things up visually and physically. Connection can become a constricting relationship so that is more intriguing as there is the whole riverside of views and connections. Interesting, emulsion and little doors, a more complex, narnia version of connection. The gift project will have to tackle all these boundaries. Sequence of spatial interventions. Concentrate less of drumming up programme, more about different spatial conditions across rift from inland to the river. Taken as a whole can be a whole vocabulary. Similar linear structure, of filmic moments along this, but not in 3d yet. Don't come back with another project that looks at hangang regeneration. 


My next key objectives are to explore a sequence of spaces that tackle the connective issues at all five boundaries. The Aerial photograph below shows the location of these possible thresholds. Movement in three dimensions will be an integral part of this exploration. The sketch that accompanies the photo talks about the movement in the x,y and z axis with key measurements and angles which will form the spatial sequence. Little doors open up internal and external spaces revealing and hiding views and coonections.

Cityscape to Possible Sitescape

Cityscape Elevations

Blending the Beach Boundary

Bognor Regis town centre. A photo collage that plays with the idea of blending the boundaries between the beach and the urban fabric.

A Strategy 전략

Reconnecting the the river to the city is the aim for my gift project. Ideas are explored in a couple of drawings below. The apatu complexes and the steep retaining wall infrastructure obstruct views and connections to the waters edge. Blending the materiality and character of the traditional housing area across the boundaries created by the road, the apartment complex and topography conceptually opens up ideas. A flow of small red brick houses have journeyed to the waters edge traveling straight through the complex. A section reveals a number of locations where physical connections are needed and where the flow is obstructed. 

A STRATEGY

To Blend 

To Bleed

To Break through 

To View 

To Emulsify

TO RECONNECT the city to its river

A number of obstructing boundaries or edges exist and are illustrated with a yellow square on the drawing below. They are all potential sites for an intervention. Boundary 1 and 2 show the possibility of an elevated connection via an existing pedestrian bridge, which breaks through the Apatu block at 3rd floor. The third boundary looks to create a connection across the retaining wall of the car park. A subterranean world exists  under the complex which is refered to as 'The Rabbit Hole' by Seoulites. The darker areas represent the idea of creating a inhabited links under ground using the carparks as tunnels. Boundary 5 is where the  city meets the waters edge. Developing a program or activity at this point that allows the complex community and the Hangang park community to share would create a successful reconnection between the city fabric and the rivers edge.

Traditional World of Little Doors 작은 문의 전통 세계

Little doors emphasize the small scale character of the traditional housing areas. The doors allow entrances and access to store rooms as they line the tight alleyways. I discovered a peculiar little door at Changdeok Palace, I peeled off the tour group and tried to find a quiet place to sit and sketch. My Peace was disrupted when the second tour group, ten strong and their guide gathered round behind me and watched me as I tentatively drew the little door. 

On a walk around Heukseok I documented a few of the little doors that lined my path. When you look for them they really are everywhere. They're position on facades are often bizarre, elevated or seemingly inaccessible. I have discovered that the average Korean is smaller than myself, but it seems that even these doors are small for them. Could they be special entrances to a world solely for the 5ft or less?

Heukseok An Abrupt Dislocation 돌발 전위를 흑석

Looking to test a strategy, I felt I needed a location to test it in. This led me back to the River Han. Seoul has over the last decade reconnected physically and psychologically with the Waters edge. There are still places where a dislocation occurs. I will concentrate on an area called Heukseok which is located on the southern bank of the Han. A number of layers disconnect the city communities from the waters edge.
A figure ground plan helps illustrate these different layers. Modern Apatu complexes and six lanes of traffic visually and physically disconnect the traditional housing area from the rivers edge. A section will clearly show the apartment complexes as a series of disconnecting walls. My strategy will be to blur the boundaries between these obstructive layers.

Butlin's An Abrupt Dislocation

As I explained before I will be using my final weeks here in Seoul to test reconnecting strategies through a gift project. Bognor Regis has many issues, but I hope to apply a strategy that looks to forge a better physical and psychological connection with the Sea. A masterplanning exercise that looks to bring the 'Beach' to the town will form the first part of my work when I arrive back. Butlin's holiday resort will be also be a area I will focus on. As explained in an earlier post...

Butlin's has long been an isolated 'city' within the town, a self contained community. Permeating Butlins' hard barrier will create a connection with the town. The potential of the southern boundary shared with the promenade has been neglected by the resort. Its metal spiked fence implies a negative relationship with the beach and the town. 

The resort is located in the centre of the town and form stronger connections with its context. The map shows the resorts location and size within the town. It is a small self sufficient city. A key strategy is to explore the blurring of the boundary the resort has with the town and the promenade. Blending the urban with the natural can allow economic, spatial and healthy reconnections.

Butlin's bleeds with the town

Beaches+Cities+Dislocations 해변 + 도시 + 전위

The time has come for me to distill my research allowing a clear strategic direction to emerge. I have discovered the Jimjilbang, which are to me purifying spaces embeded in the culture and urban fabric of Seoul. What I am currently concentrating on  in preparation for my gift project is a strategy of looking for physical dislocations within the city. 


The Cheonggycheon stream project is an example where the city has rediscovered a natural, historical enitity deep within the city centre. This infrastructural beach provides connections between pure and unpure parts of the city. Similary the Han was cruelly disconnected from the city and I will return to the Park to search out a site that illustrates an abrupt dislocation. Butlin's has long been an isolated 'city' within the town, a self contained community. Permeating Butlins' hard barrier will create a connection with the town. The potential of the southern boundary shared with the promenade has been neglected by the resort. Its metal spiked fence implies a negative relationship with the beach and the town. An interesting way of dealing with Butlins' dislocation could be to treat it as a city.

Photomontage of the Cheonggycheon Stream project. The urban dislocation is now a memory.

Seoul has reconnected with its Rivers through physical connections such as bridges, lifts and tunnels. The park is the length of the river, which in turn becomes the length of the city. The same spatial relationship happens in Bognor where the promenade is a public space the length of the town.  My goal is to discover a dislocated site that informs a method of reforming a connection. Possible strategies may become paths, physical interventions or the framing of views. In Bognor my strategy is to reveal the beach to the town, a method of enacting a flow that blends the two extremes.

Traditional Fabric of the Seoul

These dense low rise areas once stretched across most of the city and formed a cityscape that was homogeneous as all the buildings use ornamented bricks. The houses pile up the hillsides and respond positively with the city's topography, offering views out across the city. These areas have the character of a  'conglomerate matrix' and they resemble south american shanty towns when seen from afar. The adhoc construction methods and lack of planning regulations means that new enclosures and additions create a rich fabric that is stitched together by a complex networks of alleyways and roads.

The drawing below shows the variety of form and brick constructions that create the rich fabric of the traditional housing areas. My concern is the intricate and spatially interesting areas are being demolished and replaced with identical impersonal apartment blocks. This profit driven situation is causing social and physical dislocations. Firstly the apartment blocks are not places where people want to stay for long periods of time, which restricts the formation of strong communities. Secondly the complexes of Apatu's form urban mountain ranges, which interrupt views and an understanding of the city's topography.

Seoul Solid Crew Swap Shop

All seven of the Seoul Solid Crew spent last Sunday busy envisaging and exploring the essence of other peoples projects, through physical model making. The exercise was extremely useful as it allowed me to formulate strategic ideas that dealt with dislocations and reconnections. I have realised that this approach will be extremely applicable when looking at Bognor and more specifically Butlin's. So first up is Tommy Downs' model... 

This model demonstrates that any surface can be a place of escape. Turn Butlins inside out. by punching through the walls separating inside and outside we can create a muddying of the water, or more accurately, a watering of the mud - an emulsion can be formed.


Blending and muddying of the water opened up an avenue of thinking that I was blind to before. The model represents a three dimensional strategy of dealing with reconnections. Second up is Alpa Depanis' model...

The title of your thesis and the overall ambition to reconnect with the sea in bognor set up a spectrum that mediates between pure and unpure. By your definitions, the sea itself marks one end of the scale - the purest condition. This is a natural condition that lacks a hard edge presently there is abrupt disconnection where the body of water meets the town.  The town comprises a formal condition and is the site of the other extreme of the spectrum - the unpure.  in order to counter the severe division, the model proposes the insertion of pure spaces within the unpure density. these spaces begin to form a network that enable flow between the extremes and restore a sense of balance.


After much discussion it was clear that the Jimjil spaces represented the purest spaces within the unpure density of the city. This clarified my thinking and has allowed me to move forward and discover a site to test a strategy.

Contract Added to Project Page

The Pleasure Beach 기쁨 비치

The second 'beach' like area of Seoul, after the Han River is Wolmido, a pleasure beach. A liberating place unfound in central Seoul, offering cheap tacky fun. The promenade resembles a prison like space, where street furniture clutters and restricts views out to the sea. A ride on the monorail would offer a better elevated vantage point, but what about the pedestrian?

In high season the small island is over run with people and cars, the second image looks to visualise this automobile bombardment.

Busan Beaches 부산 해변

I managed to escape Seoul for the weekend and venture to Busan a Korea's second city on the coast. This post shows my sketch study of the Haeundae Beach, it really was the Copacabana of Korea. You swim fully clothed on these beaches though. It had a typically seaside feel about the place with run down buildings and the smell of fish markets. The city escaped density by adopting the sandy beaches as a public space. Strictly no smoking!

Undressing the Jimjilbang 목욕탕 옷을 벗기는

From my memory I have redrawn the spatial layouts of the Jimjilbang's that I've visited so far. These drawings should be developed to include material and atmospheric qualities. They are certainly missing some naked Korean men. As a follow up to redrawing the wet spaces contained within the Jimjilbang I drew the sections that correspond to many of the spaces illustrated in the plans. By overlaying the drawing on the cityscape I'm trying to show the embedded nature of these contained spaces in the city's urban fabric. The Photograph represents the incredible opportunity that a view could offer, a connection to the city and the provision of a reference point for contemplation. 

Escape to Wolmido, a Pleasure Destination