architecture + urbanism
In the June issue of of Residential Architect, SsD was listed as one of the 15 Young Firms to Watch in their 15th anniversay issue. Jinhee Park spoke about how SsD's projects always have some research component embedded within them that translates (and migrates) to other scales and project types. Special thanks to Nigel Maynard for covering the story and a warm congrats to our colleagues Howeler + Yoon and Merge Architects who made the list.
'Cloud' was recently featured in Domus. Occupying the adjacent landscape to the White Block Gallery, The public art sculpture charges a previously underutilized path by providing a new experience of light and sound for the pedestrian-focused community.
As part the 'Emerging Voices Award' by the Architectural League of New York, SsD was featured in the Architect's Newspaper. The story focused on the way we are currently pioneering the idea of the networked micro-office: By having posts in 3 places – New York, Boston, and Seoul – we are able to combine deep regional experience with a global reach. Sometime the 3 offices work as autonomous outposts, other times the offices are networked into a singular entity to leverage a synergy between the offices. Thanks to Molly Heintz for covering the story.
The phrase "15 minutes of fame" was coined by Andy Warhol over 43 years ago. Archdaily is our one of our favourite portals to get a dose of media if only fleeting. The White Block Gallery and the Braver House were recently featured and our 15 minutes of elation quickly turned back to "time to get back to work."
We were honored to be one of 15 architects selected by guest editor and curator, Richard Meier, in the December issue of l'Arca Magazine.
"For these special pages, I wanted to focus on young firms that are creating exceptional work in two regions of the world where Richard Meier & Parters is also working: Latin America and Asia. This is a very exciting moment in architecture for both continents…"
- Richard Meier, Dec 2011, l'Arca
Part of an larger network that rethinks how fresh food is produced, distributed, and consumed, Clover's first restaurant in Harvard's Square's iconic Holyoke Center is featured in the Dec/Jan issue of Dwell Magazine. Thanks to Aaron Britt who covered the story. To find out more about Clover: www.cloverfoodlab.com
The White Block Gallery has won a Special Citation for Design Excellence from the regional AIA New England Chapter.
"The jury admires this project for the purity of the idea and the inventive use of glass. Glass is explored as a material that need not be transparent or invisible, adding mood and subtlety to the classic prismatic cube parti."
Jinhee Park has just won Marie Claire's prominent 'Women on Top' award and is featured in the November issue of Marie Claire. As the only architect of the group, the issue features 16 women who are leaders in their profession. Katie Holmes presented the awards at the top of the Hearst Tower.
"Starting out with just a game-changing idea, a bulletproof business plan, or an electrifying design, these women are reinventing their industries and demolishing boys' clubs from the ranks of the military to Silicon Valley. They're all under 40, but those aren't stars in their eyes: They're planning a revolution." – Sophia Moura, Marie Claire
Less than 2 years ago we won the competition for the White Block Gallery. In retrospect it feels like the project leapt from paper to reality. Its successful completion is critical on many fronts - It was our first building in Korea, and it was our first free-standing arthouse. We have a lot of people to thank along the way, many of whom we hope to have credited on the project team list. Most of all, the experience has been invaluable and we're now tooled and ready for what's next: to take on more projects in Asia, and to step further into doing work that can bring a positive effect on the public life of our cities, both at the scale of the individual and at the scale of the larger urban framework.
In the last year, we’ve been working with Clover on their food trucks and their new restaurant in Harvard Square. Boston area residents may have already visited one of the two Clover Food Lab Trucks that are on the roll, one in Kendall Square and the other in Dewey Square near South Station. For those of you that don’t know Clover, they are an amazing innovation in (dare we say it) ‘fast food.’ But don’t let the connotations fool you: First of all, the owner, Ayr, is very modest about the little revolution he is starting. In working through the design with him, we decided early on that there will be nothing in the architecture or marketing materials that screams that Clover is vegeterian, locally sourced, and organic whenever it can be. What matters here is not making these distinctions (which are too quickly becoming marketing buzzwords), but instead to simply serve up delicious, healthy (and fast) food.
Starting by recycling decommissioned cargo trucks, the Clover Trucks have been designed to be efficient, low-energy, passively cooled, and abstractly minimal – like a white-board on wheels ready to be written on. Despite their simple appearance, they are a small small feat of engineering that spans very compact kitchen and storage design to the integration of an i-phone driven POS system spearheaded by Ayr with his affinity for cutting-edge and user-friendly technology. As we refine the design for future trucks, they will be converted to bio-diesel and include solar hot water and photovoltaic panels. And as we zoom out and think about the larger picture, we hope to not only contribute to the design of the spaces, but also to the rethinking of the larger environmental predicament of our food systems: how it is distributed, prepared, and consumed.
White Block Art House:
SsD wins competition for prestigious Korean art gallery
The new gallery for SangSang will be a 1500 m2 exhibition and cultural space at the heart of the Heyri Art Valley in South Korea. SsD’s winning scheme is a matrix of carefully proportioned gallery boxes and interstitial cultural and landscape spaces. A silkscreen glass skin modulates views and light while subtely expressing the volumes within.
Jinhee Park, principal of SsD:
We carefully considered the spatial and environmental needs of today’s art. Integration with the natural landscape of the lake-front site was also of crucial importance. The result places the intense and controlled experience of art side-by-side with informal social and landscape interactions. The circulation through the building integrates a wide variety of exhibition spaces into a single experience.
John Hong, principal of SsD:
We’re excited to integrate a high level of sustainability into a program and site that is challenging, but in the end a great match. We parametrically studied natural lighting to optimize for viewing artwork as well for lowering energy consumption. We’ve also proposed passive ventilation systems that will integrate with environmental control of the more archival spaces.
Experiencing Art: Beginning at the entrance of the building, visitors are invited to spiral through a series of ‘boxes’ before emerging at the planted sculpture garden on the roof. Spaces vary greatly in size, ranging from 11m to 3m tall to accommodate a wide variety of works. Exposure to natural light is also closely controlled: While some spaces receive a maximum of diffuse northern sunlight, other more intimate spaces are lit by light-wells, and video-art galleries are provided with an absence of natural light all-together. Extraneous circulation space is kept to a minimum by connecting galleries directly to each other, or through large active social spaces.
Unfolded section through varying gallery spaces.
excerpt from the AIA press release:
Jinhee Park and the firm she co-founded—Single Speed Design—are widely published, including being awarded the first Metropolis Next Generation Prize. “Park is among those few uncommon young architects whose contributions and skills will shape our profession for decades to come,” writes Diane Georgopulos, FAIA, on behalf of the Boston Society of Architects nomination. The firm’s Big Dig House (2006), in Massachusetts, drew particular acclaim from Susan S. Szenasy, Metropolis editor in chief. “Their project, recycling the remnants of Boston’s Big Dig into beautiful housing, so impressed the judges that the proposal, happily, came to represent the high standards we have since then put on our awards program,” Szenasy writes.
see also: Metropolis POV
