Doyeon Cho + Junebum Park

Objective

In response to this year’s AAVS Seoul theme, Compressed City Seoul, Unit 4 will investigate how architectural compression manifests architecturally through the lens of rituals. The unit aims to uncover how both traditional and modern rituals in Korea have shaped, transformed, and invented compressed spatial conditions in Seoul. Based on this research, students will eventually be invited to propose alternative futures that envision decompressed environments for rituals.

Research

The unit will begin by examining specific past and present rituals in Korea and trace how the spatial forms associated with them have evolved or emerged over time. Students will be encouraged to uncover how these rituals have changed or been created in relation to shifting political, economic, and social forces—and, in turn, how the relevant architectures have been reshaped, condensed, transformed or invented. Through this initial phase of research, the unit aims to understand architectural compression not only as a physical condition, but as a cultural, social, political, and economic phenomenon.

Following this, the unit will turn its attention to architectural precedents of the examined rituals in Seoul. Each student will be asked to visit and document at least one precedent, critically observing not only its immediate context but also its internal spatial arrangements. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: to deepen understanding of the research and to discover spatial clues that may inform final proposals. 

Proposal

In the final phase, students will be invited to propose decompressed spatial conditions for their chosen rituals. These proposals will not aim to simply return to past typologies, but rather to question new potentials of alternative spaces that could accommodate ritual practices today. These speculative architectures will reimagine latent futures of ritual spaces in Seoul beyond its current limits. 

Method

Throughout the visiting school, collage will serve as the primary medium of communication, supported by other supplementary tools, such as text, photography, and line drawings. Students will be encouraged to explore collage not merely as a representational technique but as a generative method. They will experiment with its layering, narrative, recontextualization, decontextualization, and transformative sequencing to articulate their research and proposals.

Recommended reading list

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1972. Reprint, London: Penguin Classics, 2008.

Han, Byung-Chul. The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2020.

Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. 1978. Reprint, New York: Monacelli Press, 1997.