Three office towers, totaling 239k sqm, for several arms of the Samsung brand; medical, insurance, and construction. The team decided to create a connection between the three towers in both plan and elevation using a “Wooden Building Blocks” metaphor that would tie them together through a shared language and heights/lengths of podium/ tower parapets, cantilevers, and wall types that would be unique to only the three towers. Our team expanded on this metaphor by using that same geometric play that, from a master planning concept gathered the three towers, but in our individual building designs, broke down the massing on all elevations.
I was given the task of studying the curtain wall systems to be applied throughout. We found the best way to illustrate one “block” from another in the towers was to design two distinct curtain wall systems- one that was strongly vertical in expression, and one strongly horizontal. The strength would come, not from the process of adding decoration, but from deeply recessed linear frit glazing where operable windows would be located (and hidden when opened) as per both Seoul’s code for smoke and Samsung’s request for natural ventilation.
Above: Tower B lobby where the exterior curtain wall figuratively "punches" through the glass fin supported storefront.
Above: Tower C lobby ceiling where curtain wall linear recesses become attachment points for lighting, sprinklers, air vents, and misc security devices .
Above: Tower C exterior courtyard where the conference space of the second floor cantilevers overhead. Curtain wall tucks under to become reflective glass ceiling.