Encompassing a total built-up area of 238,500 square meters, the Samsung Seocho project is an office space for Samsung group and multiple suppliers/manufacturers in Tower A and B while Tower C serves as the new corporate headquarters for Samsung electronics by Samoo Architects and Engineers. This corporate campus was made in collaboration with KPF architects in 2008. They provided the linkages among low-, mid-and high-rise levels to make it blend the whole project with the surrounding urban fabric of downtown Seoul.
The project is located in Gangnam which is an example of a high-tech elite corporate campus and redefines the skyline of one of Seoul’s upscale districts. Seeking inspiration from the famed Rockefeller centre in New York City, Samoo architects and engineers made this building a part of their culture and tradition.
Concept
The structure revolves around the idea of entangling culture with modernism by getting inspired by the symbolic joinery represented in traditional Korean woodworking. The massing of the building uses interlocking forms that aim to inter-weave the building’s distinct program elements. The towers are merged by creating several smaller lots to create a grouping pattern to create a design that transforms the site into a user-friendly campus. Samoo Architects and Engineers made gestures towards encouraging pedestrian movement and interaction throughout the site and cleared the way out to the surrounding city to facilitate linkages with existing buildings.
The massing of the buildings is made with the basic volume of a rectangle, employing traditional Korean structural systems to represent Korean culture while remaining sensitive to the site context in terms of building height. While this represents the concept of the project, it creates harmony with adjacent structures, expressing mutual relationships between internal departments and corporations.
Structure
Vertical and horizontal textures were added to each of the surfaces by using two different mullion systems, which heightened the inter-relationship between the structures and improved the clarity of individual building volumes. As a result of an unusual project requirement for smaller mechanical rooms on every floor that enable an effective, supplemental perimeter cooling system, the reveals between the interlaced volumes of the towers are louvered. The use of reflective glass and the juxtaposition of horizontal and vertical curtain wall types heighten the drama of the interlocking, cantilevered tower masses, which appear to float free of one another due to the louvered reveals. The narrow recess of both curtain wall types features translucent glazing, while the wider portions have standard vision-shielded glazing units (IGUs).
Samoo Architects and Engineers keep in mind the forefront technologies and the outer walls of the tower are designed with a unique curtain wall that features each horizontal and vertical element to reveal the design concept. The function of the building is an office complex, and the structural material used is composite. The conventional Korean “superblock” was deconstructed by KPF and Samoo Architects and Engineers to respect the scale of the nearby urban fabric.
To integrate the complicated and weave the numerous programmatic elements together effectively, linkages are developed at various levels.
Tower
The prototype revolved around the notion of privacy, hence three separate towers were set out conducive to seclusion thereby offering nominal trespassing among buildings. Samoo Architects and Engineers meticulously worked for the street environment and visual connection with the general vicinity by reducing the mass of the podium, which allowed for the allocation of space to the exterior of the buildings. The tower C podium is broken into multiple program-specific volumes to establish a human scale for the project. Dining, meeting and exhibition functions are accommodated in several masses, with the most important being the Samsung Showroom showcasing the latest Samsung technologies.
Landscape
To encourage pedestrian circulation around the site, the landscape plan incorporates paved walkways that unite and cross the complexity of the public areas. These crossings include a corporate park between Towers A and B, pedestrian breezeways through the podium of Tower C, and an enormous public plaza that supports public movie screenings, concerts, and other activities to further promote social interaction on-site.
Samoo Architects and Engineers’ design for the Samsung Seocho complex focused on two main objectives: achieving an effective pedestrian and vehicular circulation network through the site and creating three distinct zones for daily use by Samsung employees, visitors, and residents of surrounding neighborhoods. The three areas are the corporate park, a human-scale green garden made of natural materials that contrast with its hard-edged urban surroundings, the community plaza, a gathering spot for small groups or large events, and the Samsung plaza at Tower C, a substantial private roof garden with rusticated stone walls that retain soil for elevated planting areas.
A water garden with a variety of water lilies, grasses, and carefully placed natural specimen stones was built in the middle of the Samsung Community Plaza and is intended to freeze in the winter when the plants are dormant, significantly lowering energy and maintenance expenses.
The complex is not only an office complex but a second home to people who work there and a new experience for everyday visitors. Being just a structure that focuses on selling electronics wasn’t enough. It has to be iconic!
Citation
Pop, T.M. (2022) Samsung Seocho, PWP. PWP. Available at: http://www.pwpla.com/projects/samsung (Accessed: October 14, 2022).
Sagredo, R. (2018) Samsung Seocho / KPF, ArchDaily. ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/898210/samsung-seocho-kpf (Accessed: October 14, 2022).
Samsung Seocho: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (no date) Archello. Available at: https://archello.com/project/samsung-seocho (Accessed: October 12, 2022).
