TRUTEC Building

Seoul, South Korea

Photo © Amy Barkow

Office Buildings

Architects: Barkow Leibinger

Location: Seoul, South Korea
Year: 2006
Client: TKR Sang-Am Ltd.
Team: Martina Bauer (Project Manager), Matthias Graf von Ballestrem, Markus Bonauer, Michael Schmidt, Elke Sparmann, Jan-Oliver Kunze
Contact Architect: Chang-Jo Architects, Seoul, Korea
Structural Engineer: Schlaich Bergermann and Partner, Stuttgart
Structural Engineer: Jeon and Lee Partners, Seoul
Façade Consultant: Arup Façade Engineering Alutek Ltd., Seoul

A 50meter high mid-rise comprising exhibition and office space has been constructed within the ‘Digital Media City’, a new urban quarter is situated in Seoul between the international airport and city center. Given the uncertainty of adjacent neighboring buildings we proposed a building which is clad in a skin of faceted reflective glass panels. It quite deliberately sits between complete artistic free play (relief, sculpture) and standardized seriality, and draws its aesthetic strength from this tension.

The outcome is the fortunate result of what was initially a problematic situation: by intentionally assimilating the surrounding buildings onto the façade of the TRUTEC Building through reflection and optical fragmentation, we could react while still not knowing what the emerging surroundings would ultimately offer. The polygonal surfaces fragment any given contextual surroundings into a kaleidoscope of infinite pixels.