Geumchon Gukbab 韩式餐厅丨韩国龟尾市丨atelier ah

Architects:atelier ah

Area:227m²

Year:2024

Photographs:Junggyu Park

Lead Architects:Mincheol Bae

Program / Use / Building Function:Korean restaurant

City:Gumi-si

Country:South Korea

Text description provided by the architects. Before you even begin a day, it feels long. After one day has passed, the day seems short. In the midst of our fast-paced and busy daily lives, there is one dish that is indispensable. It is Korean soup. We are called Gukbab.Gukbab can be likened to a short break. For those who are weary of life, a short, deep rest means more than a meal. It is called Korean fast food because it is a food that can satisfy hunger in a short time. The client is an authentic Gukbab restaurant with 20 years of experience that has become famous for its unique pig head recipe that has been developed over the years. The food served here is so deep and delicious that other areas would visit in person just to have a bowl of soup. The client is a mother in her 70s who started a soup restaurant to raise her three siblings. Now, she wanted to proceed with the restaurant expansion so she could run it with his family. When viewed in the context of my mother's life as a whole, this space is a companion and beautiful years.

When I first started the project, I was more concerned with the meaning of Gukbab than the method of approaching the space. If you watch Korean movies, you will often see scenes where people eat with a bowl of soup in front of them. And generally speaking, the love for soup is genuine. As people wiped the sweat from their brows, they seemed drawn to something and ate the Gukbab with all their might, without stopping to eat their spoons. The highlight is when he grabs the heavy, rough bowl of soup with both hands and drinks it. Gukbab is a food that can be mixed with any ingredient in a rough container. Various ingredients are put into a large cauldron and simmered until they are fused together into a single dish. The process of making it accumulates the depth of time and the delicacies familiar to people, and even with just one bowl of soup, the pursuit of perfection continues. It must be simple yet have depth, it must be flashy yet plain. Although it is a new space, I wanted to see traces of my mother's years permeating the space.

Earthenware bowls have been used as traditional Korean bowls for many years. The clay-fired ware is rough, but even after many years, it still retains a simplicity and elegance. Unchanging vessels give a familiar feeling. The unique characteristics of the Earthenware Bowl highlight the flavor and essence of the contents. I struggled with how to express the feel of the Earthenware bowl in my mind in the space. We used terracotta to create a harmonious look while making the most of the traces of the existing space, creating the feel of earthen walls. The point walls consisted of panels made of lacquer paper. Lacquer paper is a traditional Korean paper, and the lacquer paper is made by applying lacquer to the paper using sap obtained by cutting into the lacquer tree. The process of making can be simple. The process of applying lacquer to the paper and letting it dry was repeated four or five times. This process results in different colors in the paper and different patterns or depths in the material. Each piece of lacquer paper becomes a work of art. We selected 70 of them. We created patterns and created a plain yet colorful and natural wall.

As I said earlier, Gukbap is a Korean fast food. As soon as you enter the restaurant, the clarity of just having to shout out the number of dishes you want, the speed at which the food comes out as soon as you order,  and the simplicity of being able to eat it with just a spoon all speak to the importance of the harmony between the kitchen and the dining area within the space. The kitchen layout is broadly divided into three sections: a space for aging the main pig's head, a space for cooking the aged meat, and a space for finishing preparations before guests serve. As there is a trend for dining in halls to be more for single-person consumption, the client wanted a hall layout that could accommodate single, double, four, or even six-person seating. Because the overall space is small, the tables are spaced closely together. At each table-border, we placed an auxiliary table to act as a partition, where sauces and accessories necessary for guests can be placed. The space appears to have many complexly divided boundaries, but by minimizing the number of walls and resolving the issue with furniture, we wanted it to look like one big space when viewed from the outside.

It would be great if the space could become a place where the breath of the visitors and the breath of the restaurant owner harmonize and become one breath. The space may have seemed cramped due to the large number of people and the way meals are served, but the existing gabled structure of the building has been utilized to create a sense of vertical openness vertically. Then, a straw mat structure was installed on the existing ceiling. One of the characteristics of Earthenware bowls is that they have tiny holes because they are made from earth, so the bowl has a breathing effect that allows air to circulate well. I was inspired and wanted to express that breathing feeling through lighting and the light filtering through the small holes in the straw mat. We hope that the ceiling will create a comfortable atmosphere and open air for those staying there. South Korea's rapid change is both an advantage and a disadvantage. In a busy society. When you enter this space in the midst of a busy society, we hope you will find solace in the remnants of Korea's past, take a short break, and feel the feast of richness that is ripened together as one.

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Project location

Address:Gumi-si, South Korea