‘Summmoru’ is a single family house in Jeju, South Korea. It is the southernmost island in South Korea. It is Korea’s the most popular travel spot for nature including ocean and mountain. Driveway to the site follows a sea shore covered with basalt rocks. The site is 140m away from the shore and it is right in front of a small hill covered with bushes and trees. It may seem the mt. Sanbang and the shore is a key from a map. However, a small hill standing beside the site is very strong and it is not very difficult to know that it is a key of this site. 

In order to understand the site better, team spent a day and night at the site. Through this study, the site almost felt like an orchestra of the nature. It was almost impossible to make this experience better through the architecture. Indeed, while there is a natural orchestra everywhere, it was hard to concentrate on a single subject. Therefore, architecture can value these individual subjects.

The client’s requirement was a single family house which can transfer into a two family house. She wanted to use the house by herself for most of the time but her sisters will visit here often with their families so she wanted a house to be transformable. The other requirement is a huge window and since she is an artist, she wanted a house to felt like a gallery. 

During the schematic design, a lot of Korean architects face into an apartment issue. Korea has a huge population lives in apartments. Therefore, most of clients can only imagine an apartment plan. However, when it is a residence, it is a different condition so sometimes it needs a different type of plans. It was hard to persuade through the stereotype.

Noun can be a very tricky trap for a stereotype. A lot of people still have a stereotype from noun but verb can be a little different. For example, a word ‘church’ can give a stereotype of image of a form. However, when it changes into a space for ‘pray’, it can break a stereotype of a form and starts to imagine a variety of forms. Therefore, schematic design was done through verbal words only and this certainly helps the client to decide what kind of space she really wants.