Corallo by Josun Hotel / ALIVEUS architecture

Curated by Hana Abdel

Text description provided by the architects. When traveling from Gangneung to Yangyang in Korea, you can see buildings with grids on their facades if you take Donghae Highway. Surfers began to gather in the small, quiet village, which is located at the entrance to the village. Although the town's face has changed due to the somewhat aggressive exposure of the facades, the architecture is intended to bring new vitality to the area by changing the environment and view, as well as having a concise and organized design that will be helpful to the region.

the rhythm created by small variations: It's hard to deny that the origins of Brutalism have become a mainstream design approach in modern architecture, whether it was the implementation of eco-friendliness through simple exterior materials or an aesthetic approach that focused on materials, texture, and structure rather than decoration. The design keyword of this building located at the entrance to a small town famous for surfing chose a rather simple design approach, implementing the facade through a concise grid of lines and surfaces, rather than Brutalism. The rhythm created by small variations is a technique used in various design fields, but because it is sensitive to proportions and the level of finish, the final product can be greatly affected by the amount of time invested in stretching and shrinking. Although this design approach may seem somewhat simple, the placement of the building, the surfaces, and the rhythm of the grid combine to create a result that is anything but simple.

Inefficient work: Architects have different design approaches. While some great architects turn their intuition into reality, others repeat the process of exploring and testing small ideas to reach a design conclusion. Cooper from the movie Interstellar gave up on a "very graceful" landing for a "very efficient" one on an alien planet because of his ability to implement intuition like a great architect. However, the design approach for this project was neither efficient nor graceful. Over the course of five years from design to completion, time and resources were used to repeatedly make small changes. In the process of creating shapes from the fundamental elements of surfaces and lines, it was concluded that exposed concrete was the best material to achieve the desired look.

ALIVEUS was a collaborative effort between the interior designers, the client, and the construction team, involving many rounds of discussions and revisions. we repeatedly tested and adjusted the size and depth of the patterns on the exposed pine pattern surfaces, and the division between the pine and Euroform surfaces until we reached a satisfactory result. As a result, the bold grid layout and the crossing of surfaces provide users with two different façade designs depending on their viewpoint. The interior design of the lobby and restaurant focused on contrast with architectural exterior design language. 'LONG STORY SHORT' interior design firm uses red and reflective materials to create a colorful experience for users.