Competition entry for the Korean Prime Minister’s Official Residence by PRAUD + Sunghyun Architects



Boston-based research and design firm PRAUD have shared with us their competition entry for the Prime Minister’s Official Residence of Korea. The proposal for this structure in Sejong Special Autonomous City right outside of Seoul was a collaboration with Sunghyun Architects, landscape architects were Lee Yoon-joo and Park Kyung-ui. The entry did not manage to win a prize, but we think it is worth sharing.

Project Description from the Architects:

The site has a strong advantage of having natural topography and scenary. It has been developed as stepped farmland and existing buildings are sitting on the site with in a relation to its topography. It is a very typical siting logic in Korea which puts topographical lines into more important criteria than absolute direction.

Like traditional temple in Korea,this siting logic is possible because each building has a small footprint and is able to move its axis freely.

Thus, in this project, we first decided to group required programs into four categories so that we can play around those smaller size masses. Three masses that are related to public programs are located on lower level and each of them is sitting on the site with its own axis in a relation to the topography.

The siting of lower masses make the upper mass, which is a residential program, possible to be free from the topography and follow the direction of the sun, which is more critical issue for residential programs.

This project is also part of the research project “Topology and Typology,” and we developed the idea of “French Fries” as topology and “Structural Pattern” as typology.

Project Details:

Title: Entry for Prime Minister’s Official Residence of Korea
Architect : PRAUD + Sunghyun Architects
Landscape Architect : Lee Yoon-joo, Park Kyung-ui
Location : Sejong City, South Korea
Site Area : 20,000 m2
Project Area : 2,975 m2