Harvard University, Gund Hall Gallery | 2010

Curated by Jinhee Park and John Hong, the exhibit emerged from a semester-long research project with students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. As the first cross-disciplinary exhibition on Korean Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design mounted in the United States, the featured work exemplifies the interrelated trajectories that mark the contemporary condition in Korea: Six organizational operatives—historical transformation, accelerated density, topographical syntax, material identity, ecological intersection, and infrastructural alliance—map the individual works in a relational field. While this synthetic structure delineates the rich and specific sociocultural ground from which the projects emerge, it also provides a transferability of the concepts embodied in the work to other situations beyond the boundaries of this particular nation. Finally, these mappings allow a temporary critical pause within the accelerated production providing space to re-evaluate the work and positively shape its future evolution.

The exhibition draws from the continuously emerging and hybridized condition in contemporary Korean society that has offered such a fertile and dynamic territory for experimentation. The six trajectories converge and diverge organizing the projects in momentary relationships that open up a ground for discussion and critique.

The 6 trajectories begin from the endwall:  as they converge, they become both literal and conceptual intersections from which the content is structured.  As the space moves linearly through the gallery, the hanging panels define ‘rooms’ where one can pause and form relationships between the projects.  The static content on the walls become further describe each of the six trajectories.

View from main entry: the project panels are first understood as a single elevation.

Quotes from the designers, video interviews, and data on Korean urban phenomena are placed on the walls to inform the project panels.

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, introduces the exhibit on opening night, February 5th, 2010.

The culminating event was the symposium, ‘Convergent Flux: Extended Topographies and the Korean Urban Condition,’ in Piper auditorium at the Harvard GSD.  Seung H-Sang, Pai Hyung Min, Suh Hailim, and Park Yoonjin each presented and enganged in a discussion with Jinhee Park and John Hong.

PROJECT CREDITS:

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design
Pat Roberts, Executive Dean
Hannah Peters, Associate Dean of External Affairs

Co-curators
John Hong, Adjunct Associate Professor
Jinhee Park, Lecturer in Architecture

Advisor
Hailim Suh, Lecturer in Architecture

Exhibition Research and Design Team
(GSD seminar participants under the direction of the curatorial team with Hailim Suh and the Exhibitions Department of the GSD).
Christina Cho, Kent Gould, Mark Holmquist, Okhyun Kim, Sooran Kim, Clara Lee, Jinje Lee, Moran Lee, Greg GhunWhan Park, Gyoung Tak Park, Terry Sung Park, Hyun Ji Ryu, John Son, Jeong Jun Song, Kyung Ho Won, Hyun Tek Yoon, Hyung Jae Yu, Seung Ho Choi (photographer)

Exhibition Team
Dan Borelli, exhibitions
Shannon Stecher, Exhibitions and Publications
Melissa Vaughn, Publications

GSD Fabrication and Installation Team
Frank Braman, Jef Czekaj, Alex DeMaria, Jack Mauch, Jared May, Reid Schwartz, Dave Stuart, Joanna Vouriotis

Historical Advisor
Jin Baek, Associate Professor, Penn State University

GSD Event Photographer
Aaron Orenstein

Supporting Organizations
Space Magazine
Harvard University
Choi DuNam, Ken Min Sungjin
Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism



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bac sasaki	mass art

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This Friday, February 5^th at 530pm there will be an opening reception of the exhibit, New Trajectories: Convergent Flux, Korea at the Harvard GSD Gund Hall lobby.  We hope you can join us to celebrate the event.

Convergent Flux, Korea is the first cross-disciplinary exhibition on Korean Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design mounted in the United States.  The contents of the exhibition draw from the continuously emerging and hybridized condition in contemporary Korean society that has offered such a fertile and dynamic territory for experimentation.  Twenty-eight recent projects that exemplify the rising distinction seen in Korean design work will be displayed in relationship to the complex contemporary issues that inform the work.

The exhibition is co-curated by John Hong and Jinhee Park with Hailim Suh as advisor.

Here is a summary of events associated with the exhibit:

Exhibition Opening:  New Trajectories: Convergent Flux, Korea
Feb. 5th / 5:30 pm / Gund Hall Lobby

Lecture: City Compound
Unsangdong (Jang Yoon Gyoo + Shin Chan Hoon, Reigh Youngbum)
Feb. 8th / 6:30 pm / Piper Auditorium

Lecture: Speed and Architecture
KYWC Architects (Kim Seung Hoy)
Feb. 16th / 6:30 pm / Piper Auditorium

Panel Discussion: Covergent Flux: Extended Topographies and the Korean Urban Condition
Pai Hyung Min, Park Yoon Jin, Seung H-Sang, Suh Hailim
Feb. 22nd / 6:00 pm / Piper Auditorium

Seoul, Korea | 2008
[finalist, invited competition]

Water, digital technology, and sustainability are merged in this new reinterpretation of the iconic but now underutilized Seoul Olympic Stadium.  A temporary structure to house the international Seoul Design Olympiad (SDO) events, an inflatable arch is held away from the structure of the historic stadium.  Through a simple process of condensing water on the surface of this inflatable structure through solar evaporation, rain runoff is purified and ‘misted’ to create a white volume that catches digital light and defines new energized events.  The mist also nourishes a nursery of culturally significant trees within the center of the stadium.  At the end of the event, these trees are placed throughout the city of Seoul according to the city’s masterplan, extending the positive memory of the white stadium.

During the day, the inflatable structure becomes a white symbolic volume.  Sunlight is used to condense and purify water which is used to feed the garden as well as create mist. At night, LED lighting and large scale projections allow the space to become a festive center for events.  The use of mist from water purified during the day enhances the effects of the lighting.

Inspired by the simple and elegant pottery of the Baek-Ja era, the stadium becomes a new urban figure.  By using an inflatable structure combined with a simple process of condensing water in sunlight within the inflatable,  the mist at times hides the stadium and then allows it to reappear giving the existing building a new sense of life.

As the stadium fronts the Hangang River, contaminated water from the river is purified through the condensation process and used to water a grove of trees.

The simple process of purifying water through condensation is demonstrated.

The nursery of trees is then relocated to different parts of Seoul according to the city’s masterplan.  The alliance of the two major municipal projects creates an overall savings for the city.

The  purified water is used for irrigation as well as well as for creating atmospheric mists for events.

View from the Han River: Changing patterns of white mist illuminated by LED’s define the underutilized existing stadium as a new event space.  The purification of the water into mist allows the public to understand the importance of the river.

PROJECT CREDITS:

architect
Jinhee Park  AIA (principal in charge), John Hong  AIA, LEED (collaborating principal), Frederick Peter Ortner, Chris Ryan, Leehong Kim, Jaeyoon Kim, Chang Zhang

structural engineer
Paul Kassabian, SGH



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prov plaza	czech library	boston harbor	acc

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Ordos 100
The inevitable cultural negotiations
when building a city in the 21st Century

An exhibition on architecture, urbanization and globalization

with 100 architectural designs including SsD’s 8 Towers
with photographs by Maurice Weiss

During ART Basel

June 10th – 14th, 2009
Open daily 5PM-8PM

Opening June 10th, 5PM-8PM

www.ordos100basel.info

E-Halle Basel, Erlenstrasse 15
For directions: www.e-halle.ch

For more information: ordos@territorialagency.com

SsD was one of 50 architectural firms nominated worldwide for the Marcus Prize for Architecture

Boston, MA | 2007

SsD was selected to design and exhibit recent work in the BAC gallery on Newbury Street in Boston as well as teach a cross-discplinary studio as Distinguished Visiting Critics.  Funded by the Hideo Sasaki Foundation, the work revolved around the notion of  ’socio-structural’ – how structural solutions can converge with ideas of shaping social space.   Large scale models that tested the principles  at a human scale became the center of the exhibit.  Translucent panels lit from within exhibiting additional project images  modulated the view from the active storefront into the gallery space.




PROJECT CREDITS:

design and construction
Jinhee Park AIA (principal in charge), John Hong AIA/LEED (collaborating principal), Catarina Marques, Chris Ryan, Leehong Kim, Frederick Peter Ortner, Nathan Fash



RELATED PROJECTS:

acc	czech library	boston harbor	prov plaza	conflux

index <  works < cultural

SsD exhibits 8 Towers, their design for the  ‘Ordos 100′ project in Inner Mongolia, at the Architectural League of New York.
Review in e-Oculus

SsD is one of 10 firms featured at pinkcomma gallery