SONGBUKDONG RESIDENCE GARDEN 1, Seoul, 1996

 

Scope

Landscape Design, Site Engineering, Construction Supervision

 

Team

Architecture: Hak Sik Son, AIA

 

The site of this garden has a level difference of 11 meters. In order to reduce the oppressive feeling of retaining walls, there is a need to ‘hear the slope’, and to relate street entrance and building/main garden levels. In an homage to a traditional Korean temple approach, Oikos introduced a series of forecourt gardens with access stairs, which are linked by water channel and water fall. The main garden consists of a traditional yet contemporary ‘Madang' (court) with a single large tree providing focus and shade to building and garden, and a distant stroll garden edge richly planted with native flowers, shrubs and trees. The back garden is densely planted to create a forest-like feeling, inset with a traditional step garden featuring plants related to cultural memory, which can be viewed through the sliding door panels of the building's traditional Korean room.

 

Publication "Jazz of Architecture and Landscape: A Contemporary House and Garden in Seoul", in: Environment and Landscape 1998/12 pp 48-53

 

Seoul Residence Gardens I, II, III, IV, In: Contemporary Korean Gardens, 2002, pp 12-73, Editor & Publisher: Environment and Landscape (Korean)