PyeongChang: The Latest Architecture and News

Earlier this month, the Winter Olympics was officially opened in South Korea. Laurian Ghinitiou visited PyeongChang to capture the celebrations and the festivities of the Winter Olympic Games. At the Olympic Park, he turned his lens towards the now-famous Vantablack VBx2 building designed by Hyundai and Asif Khan. The pavilion was conceived of as a "narrative" and everything from the facade to the five rooms within -- water, solar, electrolysis, hydrogen fuel stack and recreation of water -- were part of the story.

The unique experience starts from the initial encounter of the pitch-black building at the Olympic Park to the final room where water droplets ripple off the walls. The alluring black facade, for example, embodies the dearth of light in space, as well as the infinite possibilities of the universe. The universe is also the birth place of Hydrogen during the Big Bang and is where the narrative begins.

Hyundai chose to build the complex in the Olympic Park in order to reveal to visitors how Hydrogen energy is conceived, but the designers made sure this was not going to be purely a science experiment. Laurian Ghinitoiu captures how the pavilion is all about novelty, delight, and the visitor experience.

Check out the full series below:

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Much has been said about the darkest building in the world, designed by Asif Khan, for Hyundai's Winter Olympic pavilion this year. What’s more surprising about this blackest-of-black pavilion is really how bright it is inside. The imposing facade of Vantablack VBx2 encloses a series of radiant, playful rooms and the entire project is part of a joint effort by Hyundai and Asif Khan to use architecture and design principles to bring delight to Olympic visitors in Pyeongchang this year.

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Asif Khan's Vantablack pavilion, the world's first super-black building, will open at the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony on 9 February 2018.

The Olympic pavilion is coated with Vantablack VBx2 carbon nanotubes and illuminated by thousands of tiny white light rods. These rods extend from the structure's parabolic super-black facade and create the illusion of a field of stars suspended in space. Looking at the building will be the closest experience to looking into space from a point on Earth.

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Traditionally, Winter Olympics stadiums have stuck to a design that obscures the sky and protects against the elements in order to keep the guests warm. This year, the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics organizing team wanted to try something different. Guests will watch the three-hour opening ceremony at the PyeongChang Olympic Main Stadium – and it will be roofless.

Pyeongchang, located not too far from the border of North Korea, is notorious for one of the worst winters in the country. Temperatures in PyeongChang are forecast to reach minus 14 deg C (about 7 deg F), partly due to the powerful, biting winds that barrel down from Siberia and the Manchurian plain. This may be the coldest Olympics since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. And because of the curious roofless architecture, the roughly 35,000 spectators will be completely exposed.