moon hoon: rock it suda, south korea

‘rock it suda’ by moon hoon, ganwon-do, south korea image © kim yong kwanall images courtesy of moon hoon

korean-born, australian-raised moon hoon has created an architectural practice centered on the confronting the boundaries of the discipline with various other modes of expression. his policy of ‘crashing, fusing, mixing‘ is most evident in a series of buildings for a bass guitarist client. the musician of amateur rock group ‘rock it suda’ commissioned an eponymous cluster of pensions, the term in korea for a weekend house. the new breed of accommodations has become particularly popular among urban dwellers, who flee to the remote suburbs for liberation from city life. while mos pensions are modeled after european chalets, ‘rock it suda’ aimed for an hyperbolic fantasy space, one that expressed the idea of a scaled-up playground while still capitalizing on the beauty of the surrounding landscape that borders a mining town. the six structures tectonically expand and contract while thematically centered on ‘ spain’, ‘barbie’, ‘stealth’ , ‘ferrari’, ‘cave’ and ‘korean traditional house.’ the architect shared exclusive images of his sketchbook with us as the exuberant and whimsical project took shape in his imagination and long before the loud blues, intense reds and vibrant yellowswere made manifest.

the pensions face a dry river bed and are sited in a forest that borders a dilapidated mining townimage © kim yong kwan

summer views of the buildings in the greenery image © moon hoon

the hammock-like tails mark reality from the virtual interior space image © kim yong kwan

view of the cafe image © moon hoon

the spanish house is an architectural collage of a bull fight image © moon hoon

the ferrari house is a bright periscope image © moon hoon

deemed ‘play-chitecture‘ the pensions are additionally fitted with hammocks shaped like tails so that wind and human movement might physically express a more whimsical architecture, far removed from a stagnant box. enjoying the inherent theatricality of a short-stay accommodation, the buildings are intensely fantastical in nature with ‘ spanish house’ sporting a pair of horns and a fetishized, all-red tribute in ‘ferrari house.’ the soft tails are supposed to be the liminal space between reality and the virtual realm of the architecture. of his process, the architect shared that he worked from the inside out, assigning a bright hue and concept to each volume then allowing each form to become its own dynamic organism. the flamboyant weekend houses inherit the landscape in variety of ways, namely faceted glazing and periscopic cut out. the architecture of enjoyment is clear in the cartoonish vivacity each pension and the designer’s animated view of the world finds its resonance in space.

view into one of the ‘tails’ image © moon hoon

interior of the barbie house image © yeum seung hoon

living area of ‘ barbie house’ image © moon hoon

dining and living space views of ‘barbie house’ image © yeum seung hoon

racing stripes and checkers mark ‘ferrari house’image © yeum seung hoon

vibrant reds and patterns meet landscape image © yeum seung hoon

ferarri space interiorimage © yeum seung hoon

‘spanish blue’ bedroom image © yeum seung hoon

spanish blue is filled with interior light image © yeum seung hoon

bull horns visible on the top of ‘spanish house’ image © yeum seung hoon

(left): the living space of spanish blue (right): view from the kitchen of ‘stealth black’ image © yeum seung hoon

the bedroom of ‘stealth black’ contains two round windows that reframe the landscape image © moon hoon

views of the outdoor cafe image © moon hoon

the hammock tails are lit by night image © moon hoon

‘rock it suda’ that band often plays in the cafe that serves the pensions image © moon hoon

night-time views of the short-stay hotel complex, tails and all image © kim yong kwan

of the work the architect says:

‘architecture is alive! moving beyond its limits….also, living in the realm of imaginations…now that’s something to think about as you lie on your barbie pink day bed.’

the architect shared pages from his sketchbook with designboom; they show a complex imaginative narrative behind the buildings image © moon hoon

interior spaces were informed by fantastic extra-terrestrial spacesimage © moon hoon