Sesangja > Design Works

Sesangja stands on an L-shaped site in the commercial district by Yongmun Station, and an open strip of that site had long been the way people reached the shops and houses behind it. The client asked that the design keep that route open for the sake of the neighborhood, so the scheme settled on a passage for residents that does not give up the ground-floor frontage. Above the ground floor, levels two to five hold a rectangular form so the retail space works efficiently, and voids cut into that rectangle as windows split it into what reads as three boxes standing on a shelf. The brick is turned and stacked differently on each floor to give the building depth as the sun moves across it, and the cavity-laid brick wall lets daylight and lighting play across the elevation. Terraces of different shapes on each floor give the retail space a point of contact with the outside and make up for the openness that rental units often lack.