BUNDANG TWIN TOWERS
CONSTRUCTION STARTS SOON
Urban Agency has been commissioned to design a mixed use building of over 50.000 m2 at the entrance to the Bundang District outside of Seoul, Korea. The site is surrounded by a vast green nature area on 3 sides, and lies at a fork between the Tancheon River and a small tributary. The driving force behind this project was the desire to optimize the site’s location and the buildings’ orientations to provide each resident with the best possible views of the surrounding landscape. There is 225º of exposure to the surrounding landscape, but for each apartment to have direct views to the green context, the two residential towers have to be rotated at 45 degree angles. Once rotated, the buildings provide all apartments with wide views, as well as better access to sunlight. While the two towers are rotated 45 degrees, it was necessary to maximize the floor area of the lower, commercial floors. The first two floors respond to the shape of the urban block structure, with small plazas at the two primary entrances. The parking and office levels mediate the shift in geometry, with a series of green terraces that creates a fluid, stepping transition between the angled towers and rectangular base. This twisted geometry provides for a series of green terraces to be used by tenants in the commercial levels, and helps to reduce the volume of the wider podium. Atop the commercial base, a large green roof terrace for the residents includes extensive planting as well as some communal functions integrated within the tower volume. To emphasize the building’s characteristic geometry, the facade at each floor is composed of a horizontal band of light concrete paneling, and a variable patchwork of glass and colored panels. The lower commercial levels have heigher ceilings and a high percentage of glass cladding to create optimal working conditions. The residential towers have large windows, but the facade is less open, to prevent over heating in the summer months. The Bundang Twisting Towers project will begin construction in the Spring of 2019, and is expected to be finished in 2021.
Project: Residential, Office, Commercial
Size: 54,000 m²
Location: Bundang, Seoul Capital Area, South Korea
Client: Shinyoung
Collaborators: Urban Agency, Siaplan
Type: Commission
Status: Construction begins in Spring 2019Team: Heechan Park, Henning Stüben, Gaspar Cánepa, Scott Grbavac, Minjae Kwon, Borja Santurino, Anna Yancheva
