Architects:SON-A

Area:283 m²

Year:2022

Photographs:Bojune Kwon

Lead Architect:Joohui Son

Structure Engineer:JW Structural Engineers

MEP Engineers:MK ChungHyo Inc.

Lighting Design:Mo Jaeeun

General Contractor:T&I Construction

Design Team: Soonjoo Kwon, Hyunsoo Kim, Hyunwoo Lee

Furniture Design: AP Design

City: Yangpyeong-gun

Country: South Korea

Omnibus House is a house with six gardens. Each garden fosters different outdoor rooms that aim to foster an array of diverse domestic environments.

The beauty of the site became the central motivation of the project. The house is situated on a steep hill in Yangpyeong, a quaint village near Seoul. The site has the advantage of facing multiple natural features: a river, a forest, and a hilled meadow - even a neighbor’s well-kept lawn. To take advantage of these vistas, the design of the house revolves around the strategic positioning of outdoor spaces at different levels on the hill. Here, architecture exists simply as a framing device - a collection of walls that segregate the gardens into their respective plots: a wall for every garden, gardens as rooms.

Each garden differs according to the programmatic requirements and its site context. The “main” garden is for gathering that overlooks the river. The “lobby” garden is at the entrance with a large tree for a space for repose. The “fitness” garden overlooks a lush landscape and is built for yoga. The “secret” garden shoulders the hillside to be concealed from neighbors. The “play” garden provides space for kids. The “backyard” provides an outdoor utility area.

The house actively resists being read as a singular object. Instead of being a predetermined massing, the shape of the house is intended to be an aftermath: a form born out of the logic of the outdoor spaces. The extent of the main interior living space subsequently resides within the linear leftover areas unoccupied by the gardens, thus functioning as the “behind-the-scene” corridor that connects the gardens into a coherent domestic entity.

The colorful and intricate brickwork detailing of the exterior curving walls cast shadows on the walls that take into consideration the solar orientation and the likely time of use of each garden. The single-size bricks are divided into two pieces by certain angled lines to create different wall patterns in each courtyard. They are elements that further seek to enrich the lives of their residents, as their lives unfold onto different segments of the house - an omnibus.