Deep in Dongpyeon village, where Gwacheon city meets Anyang, a mountain called Gwanak flows down towards its foot, to become the site surrounded by green and parklands. This plentifulness of nature became the starting point of the project, where important considerations were posed to bring and draw it towards the internal spatiality. In addition to this, the client requested to set the Floor Area Ratio only to 200% instead of 300% of the regulations, with the maximal height up to 10th floor, allowing to implement wide and flexible spaces in the building mass.

This enforced the first decision to embrace the nature into the building. The site being shifted 45° to Southwest, the building could be oriented to face the southeast and southwest, securing the longest possible exposure to sunlight during the day. These environmental conditions set up a stage for the architecture to explore and play with the sunlight, becoming alive through different timescales.

*Balconies as devices responding to sunlight. The issue of controlling sunlight exposure is a great importance in the countries located on the latitude of 37.24N, especially in summer. Hanok, traditional Korean architecturecontains spatial devices very well responding in regards to this issue: ‘Cheoma’ in Korean, equivalent to awning systems of the “eaves”. We translated this concept to contemporary architecture as economical balconies repeated between slabs, to provide shadows in summer while sun is high, and to receive profound light in winter while sun is low. *Louvers interacting with light and shadow.