Gorami House / DRAWING WORKS

Curated by Hana Abdel

Text description provided by the architects. A housing area that was built on land where generations have been around for 50 years was newly fixed. It is a village in Jecheon, Chungcheongbuk-do that is now called ‘Goam-dong’ and the former name of the area was Gorami (Goremi) Village. A married couple is the building owner and they had been residing at an apartment in Bundang, Seongnam, and were used to city life because they engaged in active social activities. Then, the male owner had to take care of his elderly mother so they moved to Jecheon 5 years ago to plant beans and omija fruits on land that is over 2,500 pyeong in size. The female owner is running a daycare center and still lives in the apartment, but she comes to the Gorami home on the weekends so they are a weekend couple.

Looking back on the day when I went to the house in Jecheon after their request for the design plan, the family welcomed me in the yard during the daytime in early winter and they shared memories about their house while we enjoyed omija tea and sweet potatoes. While we were discussing many topics such as whether it is possible to build a house that maintains how it looked in the past but contains the necessary spaces, the sun was setting with a refreshing breeze and the sunlight came through over the roofs. I went up the mountain behind the house with the family and we looked down on the village around the house and appreciated the view.

In modern architecture, details must be elaborate and the more exquisite it is, the greater it becomes, but it is all useless before folksy elements that provide enlightenment. This house is not a type of hanok (traditional Korean-style house) understandable to us as we conform to the form of the Joseon Dynasty. Crooked pines were layered in complex patterns. No element demonstrates any elaborate point in the house. After pinning it down, it is as if I am getting my hands on a house that is a mess, but it is not like that. The moment I first saw this house, I did not notice these elements. Instead, I only felt the comfort provided by the image of the house and the light and the breeze that steers by the yard. The folksy elements take after the outlines of nature and naturally convey the traces of time together with the mood of the space and the two eaves and depth reflect the mood of a special yard.

The existing house had a cluttered structure to the point where it seemed disorderly, perhaps because it is an old farm. The flat ceiling under the roof frame was constructed in two layers, with cement and daub, so it was heavily weighing down on the pillars. Also, the dried mud on the outside was slanted so it was attempted to try and fix them with structural pipes but it partially collapsed. It was not a general type of hanok that abides by the form of the Joseon Dynasty as we know it, and it was a house that was built by layering pines in perplexed layers. The lumber was crooked and the dried mud was stuffed here and there, so none of the elements in the house were elaborate. Yet, the house gave off a comfortable and unrivaled atmosphere so it was a waste to demolish it.

The yard had a natural and folksy charm because light and breeze steered by and also because it resembled the figures of nature. An atmosphere was created with the unique space, together with the traces of time, and the depth of the eaves and the yard delivered a gentle impression. The male building owner, who spent his childhood in the area, had affection for the old house as he would visit the house with his grandchildren. It was more advantageous to build a new house for the building owners to live there and also for their children to stay there for a visit, but they decided to remodel the house to cherish the view of their old house. The design of the house began with the collaboration between the building owners who valued their memories of their old house and an architect who aimed to guarantee convenience and vitalize the sentiments of the old house rather than demolishing the old house and new building it.

I contemplated what to empty out, set aside, and cover-up. Old houses each have different shapes and the ㄱ shaped main building and the ㅡ shaped servants’ quarters are arranged in a ㄷ shaped form by surrounding the yard. The arrangement was vitalized while changes were made in the construction. In the main building that used to have 3 rooms, one of the rooms was remodeled into a part of the living room, and since windows were designed for lighting, it was difficult to maintain how it used to look. The living room and kitchen of the main building were arranged in the connected area of the ㄱ shaped space, and 2 rooms were designed on both ends. The rafters on the previous ceiling were maintained and plywood was placed over them to install the insulating material. Accordingly, white walls were installed on both sides of the living room and the kitchen and with a high ceiling height. The servants’ quarters that used to be used as storage only needed a room and a bathroom, so attractive texture and traces could be kept as they used to be. The servants’ quarters can be the first impression of the house met from the street and it was designed in a way so that it can be used as a guest space.

The servants’ quarters block out views from the road and it also functions as a wall to adequately protect the house. The yard has an open view towards the east, so it was a breezy path. The doors of the storage in the rafter and servants’ quarters, which have been around for 50 years, were maintained to preserve the exquisiteness of time, and the flat stones that used to be in the main building were used as landscape stones in the yard. The original rafters were maintained while plywood was covered in layers over it for the construction. It was intended to lay it similarly to the uneven wood and make it balanced with how it used to look. The ceiling with a wavelike structure was produced by installing the metal frame while avoiding the existing timber construction. As the external finishing material of the roof, natural slate was constructed to surpass the elaborate design plan and settle patterns while creating it. The two buildings that are established dislocated are connected by a roof. The ceiling has multiple slopes because it resembles the ridges of the mountain behind the house, so the ceiling looks like it is settling down on the house.

We focus on the view of the house visible from the street, the scene that starts from the entrance and leads to the yard and from the yard to the house, and the view that unfolds from the yard to the outside. From the aspect of the structural methods, form, and materials, past and modern methods blend in harmoniously. By revealing and covering in layers, the Gorami house that was constructed at long and the potential of the land will connect the past, the present, and even the future.