BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition, Far East Architecture Contest

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition

East Asian Architectural Contest – designing at conflict lines between territories

1 Apr 2017

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition Winners

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition Results

BORDERS: KOREAN DMZ UNDERGROUND BATHHOUSE – RESULTS SUMMARY

Architectural research initiative arch out loud has released the winners of its’ DMZ Underground Bathhouse international open-ideas competition.

arch out loud challenged designers to explore the possibility of creating an underground bath
house within the Korean Demilitarized Zone which responded to the surrounding geopolitical
conditions. New forms of non-military architecture could occupy the border zone and begin to
ease the existing tension.

The role tourism can play in opening relations across a border begs the question: How does architecture position itself in the middle of this condition of tension?

With nearly 300 proposals and over 900 participants from all over the world, the designers of
the DMZ Underground Bathhouse competition confronted the very sensitive zone with a variety
of poetic and sublime approaches. Program and narrative were common components in
proposals for releasing tension through the bathhouse.

The competition jury consisted of Stan Allen, Moon Hoon, Jing Liu, Lola Sheppard, Minsuk Cho,
Kristy Balliet, Anna Neimark, Seunghyun Kang, Nicholas Bonner, Yehre Suh, and Matias Del
Campo.

The winners of this competition will be featured in the second issue of the out loud journal,
“BORDERS + ARCHITECTURE”. The out loud journal features results and analysis of arch out
loud’s competitions along with an interdisciplinary collection of essays surrounding the journal
topics.

Full results for the DMZ Underground Bathhouse competition can be viewed at:
www.archoutloud.com/dmz-results

JUROR COMMENTS

Comments are about various projects and/or the overall competition

“With such a charged setup, the competition poses difficult questions and issues for
architecture. The more successful submissions were ones that tried to address the conflict
through spatial programs, scenarios, and narratives.”

“ [The project] points to the illegibility and the illegitimacy that is experienced by one side
toward the other.”

“The projects are also gestural in creating intense metaphorical experiences in an overall
peaceful grandeur for a proposed unity.”

“The [project] offers opportunities for collective and individual experiences that intertwines in
tactical ways.”

“The powerful tension between large scale object and human body can be read as a sublime
commentary about the DMZ zone.”

“While the new entry on the ground recreates the political segment as part of the history, the
underground space introduces a new field that is multi-directional or non-directional, where
people can reorient, communicate, and unify.”

“words gallop thousands of miles without legs” “Rumors, gossips, fragments amplified into
space and spatial experience. Fear, terror, joy anger all stems from it. A great commentary of
the current situation…( I am hearing it )”

“ [The project] tells a story of relationship of human conditions with different ideologies in a
theatrical and performative manner, where space itself exists as both functioning utilitarian
bath and theater.”

“ [This project] gives a feeling of movement isolation, inability to escape, confined, controlled,
and sacred. Simplistic, emotional and powerful contrasts with the craziness of what this manmade
division represents.”

“The division of Korea, and the location, remains extremely emotional and use of this space
releases that tension.”

WINNING PROPOSALS

1st Place: Crossing Parallel(s)

– Participants: Jinhyun Jun, Minkyung Song, Kangil Ji
Office: STUDIO M.R.D.O. & Studio LaM
Location: New York, New York, United States

Runner-up: Cross

– Participants: Xiaoyu Wang, Yutian Wang
Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States

Runner-up: Primitive Field

– Participants: Yeonmoon Kim, Choonghyo Lee
School: Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Runner-up: This Lofty Sky

– Participants: Vuk Filipic, Anna Murynka
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Runner-up: Water Whirl

– Participants: Philip Vandermey, Jessie Andjelic, David Vera
Office: SPECTACLE: Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Runner-up: Hypotenuse Thermae

– Participants: Zhe Peng
School: Tsinghua University
Location: Beijing, China

The next arch out loud international open ideas competition is located in Tenancingo
Municipality, Mexico and is exploring how architecture can play a role in addressing the global
epidemic of human trafficking: www.archoutloud.com/trafficking

1 Dec 2016

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition 2017

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Competition

arch out loud is an architectural research initiative that hosts international design competitions.

Their latest architecture competition, BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse, focuses on the tension surrounding the North and South Korean border.

BACKGROUND

Borders hold deep meaning, but they are just lines. Throughout history, the definition of territory has remained a fundamental determinant of power. Borders carry immense historical, political, and cultural implications; at the center of conflict, there is delineation; there is drawing lines. Borders are representations in plan view–lines on a map which are not necessarily tied to any physical thing. At most, they materialize in the common form of a wall which seldom traces the entire length of the border it delineates. One notable exception is the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

If the traditional border is a line, then the DMZ is a surface. At four (4) kilometers-wide, it is a border territory: a border with its own border; a boundary space; a materialized, geopolitical line separating North and South Korea. It is one of the most heavily militarized and fortified borders in the world, and is representative to the nature of one of the most high-tensioned, ongoing, conflicts in recent history.

New questions of border continue to arise in contemporary geopolitics as nations grapple with the security of their borders and current global conflicts. So what can one of the longest-running border conflicts reveal about the nature and potential of borders in general?

CHALLENGE
arch out loud challenges designers to explore the possibility of creating an underground bath house within the Korean Demilitarized Zone which responds to the surrounding geopolitical conditions. New forms of non-military architecture could occupy this border zone and begin to ease the existing tension. The role tourism can play in opening relations across a border begs the question: How does architecture position itself in the middle of this condition of tension?

LOCATION
The proposed site area for the competition is located just west of the third tunnel which receives a high volume of tourist traffic. In addition, the site is located not too far southeast of the Kaesong industrial park. The park is atypical in that it houses a collaborative economic operation between both North and South Korea. The bath house is intended to be used by workers of the industrial park when it resumes operations and visitors of nearby DMZ tours alike. Designers need not fill the entire outlined site area and should feel free to place their proposals anywhere in the given site.

AWARDS

1ST PLACE AWARD

$5,000
+ BORDERS PUBLICATION

5 x RUNNER UP

$1,000
+ BORDERS PUBLICATION

DIRECTOR’S CHOICE AWARD
(HIGHEST RECOGNIZED PROPOSALS BY ARCH OUT LOUD DIRECTORS)

CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT
+ BORDERS PUBLICATION

10 HONORABLE MENTIONS

CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT
+ BORDERS PUBLICATION

JURY

STAN ALLEN
STAN ALLEN ARCHITECTS
FOUNDER, PRINCIPAL
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
PAST DEAN, PROFESSOR

MINSUK CHO
MASS STUDIES
FOUNDER, PRINCIPAL

NICHOLAS BONNER
KORYO STUDIO AND KORYO TOURS
FOUNDER

MOON HOON
MOON HOON ARCHITECTS
FOUNDER, PRINCIPAL

KRISTY BALLIET
BALLIET STUDIO
PRINCIPAL
2016 VENICE BIENNALE SCI ARC KNOWLTON SCHOOL
EXHIBITION & FACULTY

YEHRE SUH
TERRAINS LAB
DIRECTOR
OFFICE OF URBAN TERRAINS
PRINCIPAL

JING LIU
SO-IL
FOUNDER, PARTNER

ANNA NEIMARK
FIRST OFFICE
PRINCIPAL
SCI ARCH
FACULTY

LOLA SHEPPARD
LATERAL OFFICE
FOUNDER, PARTNER

SEUNGHYUN KANG
SO-IL
LEAD ASSOCIATE

ADDITIONAL JURY TO BE ANNOUNCED

SCHEDULE

NOV 20TH, 2016 Advance registration opens
DEC 18TH, 2016 Advanced registration closes
DEC 19TH, 2016 Early registration opens
JAN 17TH, 2017 Early registration closes
JAN 18TH, 2017 Regular registration opens
FEB 16TH, 2017 Registration deadline
FEB 17TH, 2017 Submission deadline
MAR 14TH, 2017 Winners Announced

MATERIALS

AVAILABLE MATERIALS

Competition Brief
3D Model – Site Context
2D CAD File – Site Context
REGISTERED TEAM MATERIALS

Site Area Photos Portfolio
3D Model – Expanded Site Context
2D CAD File – Expanded Site Context

*arch out loud provides free material that can be viewed before registration. After completing the registration process each team will receive an expanded set of materials in the official registration package.

Full competition details: www.archoutloud.com/borders

BORDERS – The Korean DMZ Bathhouse Architecture Competition images / information from Space for Life

arch out loud competitions

Location: Korea