Korea Herald Media Headquarters
This is remodeling project for the Herald Media Headquarters. The building was originally built 30 years ago for the laboratory of a food company. Instead of adding any building areas, we cut off some walls and slabs in order to create open office landscape and natural light and ventilation.
HooAm-Dong is old residential district which has narrow lanes to Nam Mountain, which is in the center of Seoul. H confectionary company's laboratory was here which was different with surrounding contexts. This project was to remodel the building to an office building of Herald group. Herald group is a publishing company trying to interact with neighbors in many other ways such as eco-friendly Organica food, English education, Art Gallery, Design Forum and etc. Our main interest was how to make this structure to harmonize with the surroundings and creating open spaces to change the building's internal space to get along with Herald group.
H confectionary company's laboratory, built in 1995, was a centralized building having 5 floors above ground and 3 floors below, finished with granite and punch windows. With limited budget and time, task was to maintain the building's closed structure and to renovate the plan to be opened at the same time.
The first intension was to remove the center entrance and make a natural flow of entrance from the street's slope so that people can access from both first and basement floor. We offered to put the newspaper's symbolic entrance at upper floor and to left Organica cafe's entrance at the basement to accommodate most users. It broke symmetry of the building and brought a big circulation change with keeping the center core. These changes also created sunken yard between the two entrance, where once was a part of the basement.
The second intention was in plan. Now, interior structure have very innovative newsroom layout in terms of putting all editorial resources in an open office space environment. Instead of orders or authority of a group, desks are scattered for people to be equal. At the building's simple exterior, the building's clear windows show working landscapes and represent culture of the group.
Exterior materials are bricks combined with aluminum panels giving maximum effect on openness. Rough brick works as the similarity of surroundings and highlighted aluminum panel's sleekness gives a new change.
As a result, the renovation of 25 years old building gave change in the aura, from a symmetric and authoritative building to the reflection of the site's natural condition and the user's flow. Rather than considering floor area ratio underground, we designed the building to become more open and to change from enclosed fortress kind of space. A place where people to meet up than a place to work. It's reborn as a reflection of changes in society and group culture of Korea.
