BUILDING OF THE EARTH
International Open Design Competition for the New Agricultural Resources Management Institute of Gyeongsangbuk-do, Korea
**Award of the 4th Prize (Korean Institute of Architects)
‘The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all.’
The site and surroundings of the new Gyeongsangbuk-do Agricultural Resource Management Institute is a patchwork of rich red and brown fertile soils. This vast field-gird we approach as an infrastructure, and further super-impose two new grids. Firstly a ‘zoning grid’, orientated for optimal solar exposure and shading, and scaled so as to form quadrant fields, organising the programme and circulation. Secondly a ‘technical grid’ of engineered-wood, a contemporary high-tech adaptable structural-system, housing the entire program under a low-profile saw-tooth roof. The linear pattern of the roof from above and below is contiguous with (and sampled from) the linear striped worked patterns of surrounding fields. To make truly sustainable construction requires a low-energy building in terms of not only ‘operational energy’ (renewable energy), but also ‘embodied energy’ (renewable material). There has been a recent step-change in the design and construction of contemporary wood structures. Wood is a natural and renewable material (and sequesters carbon), and when used in combination with steel, is the only sustainable material capable of large-span structures such as warehouses (Korea is currently undergoing a program of reforestation, and growing its capability for cutting-edge engineered-wood construction). Returning to the idea of ‘soil’ as the ‘great connector’, and ‘source’; our proposal is for a building ‘rooted’ in the earth, ‘grown’ from the earth, a ‘Building of the Earth’— built from great walls of rich-red rammed-earth, offering economy and thermal mass. Wood + Earth equals a carbon negative sustainable development; a landmark construction representing a new future-orientated Gyeongsangbuk-do Agricultural Resource Management Institute. With architecture as with agriculture, earth may be cultivator and creator.
Credits:
David Vardy, Gu Zheng (Dedang Shanghai), Shengze Chen (CATS Shanghai), Wang Xinyu, Xiaoyu Zhang, Ye Sun, Yu Feng, Jiyeon Lee