SPACE December2025 (No. 697)
Slow Clay Studio(2024)
DIALOGUE Cho Yoonhee principal, GUBO Architects × Hong Jihak professor, Chungnam National University × Lee Sojin principal, Leeon Architects × Lee Joongwon professor, Sungkyunkwan University × Kim Jeoungeun × Bang Yukyung
Slow Clay Studio
Kim Jeoungeun: Let’s look at another private project, Slow Clay Studio (2024). This project remodelled a corner commercial-residential building along the main road from Itaewon to Namsan Tunnel 3 into a shared ceramics studio. I heard the site was quite troublesome, with illegal extensions, land disputes, and surveying issues. How did you, as architects, resolve these challenges?
Cho Yoonhee: The building’s unique façade had caught our attention, and when the client approached us, it felt inevitable. Visiting the site for the first time, the depth of time impressed us strongly. The internal and external stair connections made the space playful, like an alleyway. But the conditions were challenging. The 40-year-old building had no existing drawings, and stairs and garages had been illegally extended. The stair accessing the third floor from the sidewalk relied on the adjacent apartment wall with added railings. We carefully considered how to resolve these complex conditions.
Hong Jihak: Remodelling projects often involve many on-site variables. The building listed as 157 pyeong in the architectural register measured 247 pyeong when actually surveyed, and the basement level 2 PIT space, which showed signs of having been flooded, had no waterproofing at all. Removing interior finishes revealed traces of fire and repeated patchwork. Exposed rebar required substantial structural reinforcement. Ultimately, the basement became a storage space with a kiln, the first floor and second-floor former residence were transformed into a clay studio visible from the outside, and the third floor became the client’s retreat.
Cho Yoonhee: What stood out was that the building had completely different ‘faces’ on the front and side, but the most noticeable external change was the improvement of the façade with tiles on the front. Next, the illegally added extensions were removed to prevent future disputes, and an exposed concrete retaining wall was built to clearly define the site boundaries. In the small sunken space created by the wall, a new external staircase was added, connecting the first and second floors.
Slow Clay Studio(2024)
Lee Joongwon: What criteria guided the additions and removals during remodelling? On the west façade facing the main road, tiles were applied, while the north façade facing the sidewalk retained its original appear...
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Cho Yoonhee
Cho Yoonhee has been working in architectural design since she co-founded GUBO Architects in 2015. After graduating from the Department of Architecture at Seoul National University and MIT, Cho built her career at IROJE architects & planners in Korea and Höweler + Yoon Architecture in Boston, U.S. Cho’s interest lies in building urban cities from the pedestrian perspective of an average person. She has worked as a Public Architect for Seoul Metropolitan Government and won the Korean Young Architect Award organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2021.
Hong Jihak
Hong Jihak, after periods of research and building his career at SAC International, HAEAHN Architecture, and Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) at Boston, co-founded GUBO Architects in 2015. Hong studied Architectural Urbanism at MIT and received his PhD on the theory of Architectural History at Seoul National University. Hong is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Chungnam National University.
Lee Sojin
Lee Sojin, architect and urban designer, graduated from the Department of Architectural Engineering at Yonsei University and continued her studies at UPA 7 (Paris, Tolbiac). Lee’s first professional experience was at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, and she has completed a wide range of architectural and urban planning projects of various scales under the mentorship of her partner architect Yves Lion for 10 years since 1997. Lee now works as the Principal of Leeon Architects. She served as the appointed Public Architect of Seoul Metropolitan Government (2012 – 2016), and has received the Korea Young Architects Award (2012) and the Grand Prize (2014) and Excellence Prize (2022) in the Seoul Metropolitan Architecture Awards, along with numerous other public architecture awards.
Lee Joongwon
Lee Joongwon is a Professor in the Department of Architecture at Sungkyunkwan University. He serves as the President of the Korea Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and is a partner at iSM Architects. His major publications include What makes us Happy at the Apple Store? (2025), Story of Seattle in Seeing Architecture (2025) and he has authored six other books.
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FRAME
Dialogue
GUBO Architects
Cho Yoonhee
Hong Jihak
Lee Sojin
Lee Joongwon
Sinteuri Park Indoor Playground
Bathhouse Iljuk
Slow Clay Studio
Aurium
public architecture
neighbourhood living facility
remodelling
precision
looseness
abstraction
concreteness
geometry
proportion
order
management
reality
