Britain’s famous fashion brand “Paul Smith” is opening its first Asian flagship store in Korea, in Gangnam a trading center for luxury brands. Considering the fact that the streets here are lined with exclusive stores for premium brands, not to mention that many high-end name-brand designers fiercely compete to open stores in this area, it was quite interesting to see how Paul Smith would make a lasting imprint with its brand of architecture on the local urban environment. We define the main characteristic of Paul Smith’s fashion brand as its ability to draw different responses, depending on the customers’ situation and interpretations.



The Paul Smith Flagship Store was created as a vehicle to infuse the abovementioned phenomenon into the urban environment. The specific shape of the building was predetermined, but its interpretation is open to all, depending on the unique perspective of each customer. The suggested figure, intended to create different stories depending on people’s perspectives and interpretations, was actually the result of a design that was constrained by legal regulations.



In order to establish a concrete shell reflecting succession, we held various and intense discussions with a construction company (Geo Hyun Construction) and decided to employ, for the first time, curved Styrofoam blocks using an NC cutter as concrete moulds. Compared to manipulating plywood moulds by coercion, this method was significantly more cost-efficient. The semi-gloss industrial paint finishes are expected to conceal commercial and structural devices and imbue freer and pleasant feelings to viewers much like a typical design from Paul Smith.

Written by Kim Chan-joong | Material provided by System Lab | Photographs by Kim Yong-kwan

Architect: Kim Chan-joong (Kyung Hee University) + Hong Taek (System Lab) Design team: Song Kyu-nam(project manager), Park Hyun-soo, Kim Young-hwan, Cho Young-jin, Ahn Chul-min
Location: 650-7, Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Program: Shop, Office
Site area: 330.20m2
Building area: 194.73m2
Gross floor area: 919.27m2
Building scope: B3, 4F
Landscape area: 19.39m2
Building height: 14.82m
Building to land ratio: 58.97%
Floor area ratio: 149.87%
Parking: 14
Structure: R.C.
Exterior finishing: Exterior wall - Painting on a sphere / Floor - Stone (THK30)
Contractor: Geo Hyun Construction
Interior: Paul Smith + Core Design

THE_SYSTEM LAB

Glass in modernism was theorized as a material whose transparency dissolved the separation between inside and outside. In effect it was a material that disappeared by allowing light to pass through while blocking air, bugs, and most projectiles.



Today glass is seen less simply. Instead its presence is explored via a number of procedures, from casting and bending to silkscreening and other surface enhancements. One aspect of this is the transformation of curtain walls from two-dimensional surfaces to three-dimensional, vertical terrains.



As the production of both architectural designs and construction elements (materials, systems, etc.) has evolved with computers, more complex and varied designs are possible. One example are folded glass facades, which take once-modular components of glass and steel and make them appear more malleable.



Barkow Leibinger Architects' Trutec Building in Seoul, Korea synthesizes the modular and the folded by taking a regular rectangular grid and infilling the cells with a prismatic pattern of triangular and trapezoidal glass panes.



This combination of regular grid and prismatic cells comes across most clearly in the top image, with the highly reflective glass giving the alternating images of sky and built context. It creates an irregular but relatively consistent pattern across the main facade.

Barkow Leibinger