Showcasing the work of nine past winners of the Korean Young Architects Award, one of South Korea’s most coveted prizes in the field, a new exhibition that opened last week at London’s Cass Bank Gallery reveals the innovative and, at times, unconventional work that has emerged since the 2008 global financial crisis and quickly transformed the Asian nation’s built environment.

Curated by Hyungmin Pai, a co-recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion award for Best National Participation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014, “Out of the Ordinary: Award-Winning Works by Young Korean Architects” reveals a mix of photographs, drawings, and architectural models. These are presented alongside a series of specially commissioned images by architectural photographers Thierry Sauvage and Kyungsub Shin, who document the wider environment, lending greater context to the young architects’ work.

From Joho Architecture’s Namhae Cheo-ma House—a residential project that uses readily available aluminum landscape fencing to add depth to the structure while expanding the outdoor surface area—to Lokaldesign’s conversion of a former swimming pool into an elegant public park, thanks to additional steps inserted into the original pool structure, the projects are as diverse as they are sensitive to the constraints of the existing environment and limited budgets.......Continue Reading