Seoul-based architecture practice IROJE KHM Architects, led by HyoMan Kim, completes Flying House (or Pilot's House) for a young pilot and his family to create their futuristic home located in the new developing town near the Incheon airport, South Korea. Flying House stands alone with its distinctive architecture identity on the site, presenting small-sclaed mountainous flying-landscape through flowing surfaces and climbable terraces-harmozied with green infill and white painted walls.

Flying House, composed of multipartite dynamic surfaces and terraces, sits on the site with its isolated and shining structure- looks like a 'landing of an airship that load nature.'

HyoMan Kim defines the house as ''architectural flight'' and he relates the Korean traditional architectural formative characteristic with the pilot's daily behavioral characteristic which is flight and tries to construct symbolically the cultural identity of the house. 

''The rumaru's carried surface roof of the flying on top of the courtyard and the dynamic movement of the frozen home metaphorically symbolize the airline's flight,'' says HyomMan Kim.

In order to offset the instability of the flight, the architect planned a sitting down form of heating stone system which is the Korean traditional architectural structure (the living room is touched with the ground). 

Like this, HyomMan Kim grasps the routinized stability into the housing through considering the environmental balance between the sky and the land.

The architect transformed the Korean traditional architect's spatial and landscape element such as yard, garden and rumaru pavilion into contemporary housing program.

This applies the house main outer space and afforest the rooftop so that when you walk from the courtyard to the roof top, it makes a landscape for the sloped roof garden that allows strolling circulation. This allows the home to coexist with the nature and form a landscape hill.

The house has a very small construction cost budget event if it seems very stylish, complex and elegant. In order to realize the design's conceptual result such as the program and spatial term, so the studio had to establish an economical and simple budget plan.

"This means that the heat insulation needs to be high and the exterior material needs to be used with cheap drivit and without pollar, pace and slave, and we need to expose the concrete framework surface and concrete block wall surface so that the structural material becomes a finishing material so that the total construction fee is minimized and creates a simple interior space,'' adds HyomMan Kim.

Encompassing a total of 194,77 square-metre area, the major structural system is reinforced concrete for the house and used dry-vit system and painted aluminium sheet for facades. The house completed in 2016. 

HyoMan Kim has a diverse range of projects on World Architecture Community and each of his houses is composed of different spatiality, form, program and identity with complex, but elegant architecture.

1st floor plan

2nd floor plan

PH plan

Roof Plan

Section-1

Section-2

Section-3

Front elevation

Leftside elevation

Rightside elevation

Rear elevation

Project facts

Project Name: Flying House (Pilot's House)

Location: Gyeongseo-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, South Korea

Use: Residence

Site Area: 291.80 m2

Building Area: 137.29 m2

Total Floor Area: 194.77 m2

Structure: Reinforced concrete

Status: completed 2016

Materials: Dry-vit system, painted aluminum sheet

Architect: HyoMan Kim - IROJE KHM Architects

Team: JiYeon Kim

All images © Sergio Pirrone

> via IROJE KHM Architects