Seoul Creative Music & Sound Centre

Client: Seoul City Council

Place: Seoul, South Korea

Competition: 2018

Type: Municipal/ Cultural

Net area: 5,384 m²

Budget: 18,243,900,000 won

AZPML

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Ivaylo Nachev, Rubén Gayarre del Cerro, Maria Herrera, Claudia Baquedano, Carlos Orihuela

Our proposal for Sinjeong-dong municipal centre aims to provide maximum programmatic flexibility while taking advantage of the site, allowing the building to evolve according to future needs and expansions. It is initially conceived as a solid volume in which perforations are made to allow light to get inside the floors. The massing is excavated in opposite corners and the top by creating a public greenhouse atrium that will be the heart of the program by connecting rooms and different uses. Hence a solid and featureless container is transformed into a light volume that defies gravity.

The building is aligned to Nambusunhwan-ro to leave an open space along Shinjeon-ro that can be used as a casual open performance square. The Black Box Theatre will be located in the ground floor, so it is easily accessible for everyone through the double height lobby nearby.

The plan is structured as an open space that concentrates installations and circulations in both extremes. A system of diagonal braces is included enabling the volume to provide long spans while cantilevering over the public space at ground level.

The program has been orderly distributed across different floors following the size requirements of the brief. All the functional floors are interconnected with a South-facing atrium system which will enhance the exchange between the different departments in the building.

At the top of the building, a vertical greenhouse atrium and a mixed system of Ground Source Heating and Thermal Solar Panels will reduce energy consumption thus making the building environmentally efficient and comfortable.

Finally, its exterior aims to resemble a musical instrument, using a steel rainscreen made with concave elements of perforated steel which give consistency to an envelope made with concrete and a double-glazed windows.  The lobby envelope is a double-height glass envelope mounted on tempered glass fins to maximise transparency.