La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
‘La Ville de Pins’ is a French Restaurant Remodeling project in Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, which is the hottest district at metropolitan area in the city of Seoul, Korea.
‘La Ville de Pins’ means a pine village in French. A pine village is situated in the heart of Gangnam in Seoul. This building boasts of its white figure among the surrounding monotone buildings. It looks like an isolate island and also looks remarkable through the inter-space of alley. The space composition of this building reflects the client’s wish to make customers experience French dinner easily without any burdens. Its space concept also reflects the new food culture named ‘Le Fooding’ on its center. Fooding is a compound word of ‘Food’ and ‘Feeling’, and tells the whole feeling produced by the combination of food, style and atmosphere. La Ville de Pins provides Le Fooding in order that the customers can enjoy French food in the more casual and popular atmosphere.
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
This two-story brick building had built in 1980s. The most important thing in remodeling this old building was to create a space harmonious with the surroundings and to attract the eyes. I thought that the conciseness might tell the message more strongly in the age when the extraordinary designs are rampant formatively and visually. Therefore, I designed this space only with white color and shapes of extremely moderated straight line on the whole.
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
I also wanted to express the spatial harmony of East and West. I think Eastern spaces follow the world of harmony and have the more delicate components, while the Western spaces follow that of control and order. I wanted Korea and France with the concepts different from each other to strike the balance between them and to be one as another world. I created a story of this space by making the sequence of spatial components and expressing the concept with design. In particular, I arranged pine garden, cafe and restaurant in shape of ‘L’, through which people inside can look out, and people outside can look in. New scenery becomes to flow successively in the interior space.
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
It is said that spaces of Korea are the culture of ‘room’. Korean intend to form the intimacy in the closed space rather than the wide open space. I attempted to create such a space of Korea at this project. I divided the spaces naturally by differentiating their levels even on the same floor. Outside garden, white cafe on the first floor, orange&purple area, and restaurant for small meeting on the second floor are divided by the differentiated levels. The differentiation of levels produced the sequence of space.
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
La Ville de Pins - BANG, image courteys MIN emerging design group | Photo by Choi, Jungwoo
White color to dominate the whole space is moderate and concise, and makes some emptiness. The emptiness of this space becomes the background filled with people’s figures and behaviors. The golden, orange and purple mosaic tiles symbolize the programs of this space against the white color. Golden area more public than other areas becomes a cafe for diverse uses and accesses. Orange area is the neutral semi-public space, and purple area is the most private space. On the second floor, natural wood and black chandelier show the programs different from those of the first floor.
La Ville de Pins - BANG, Section courteys MIN emerging design group
La Ville de Pins - BANG, West Elevation courteys MIN emerging design group
+ Project facts
‘La Ville de Pins’
606-3 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Design : Oh, Sae Min / BANG by MIN emerging design group | http://blog.naver.com/bangbymin
Design Team : Kwak, Changwook, Yoo, Hyunduck / BANG by MIN emerging design group
Program : French Restaurant
Built area : 305.67m2
Completion : December 2011
Finishing materials
Exterior : White stucco finish on CRC board
Interior : Floor-Epoxy coating / Wall-Urethane Paint, Mosaic tile / Ceiling-Urethane Paint, Mosaic tile
Photographer : Choi, Jungwoo
+ About BANG by MIN emerging design group
This is the information of Sae Min Oh, the Principal of ‘BANG by MIN emerging design group’ located in Seoul, Korea..
‘Sae Min Oh’ graduated from the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute(New York, USA) and the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design, GSAPP at Columbia University(New York, USA). He built his career at ‘the Leonard Parker associates’, ‘PDI’, and ‘Durrant’, and is currently working as the principal of ‘BANG by MIN emerging design group’. Also he is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Architecture, Korea University.
He works many diverse projects with novel attempts and experimental approaches at architectural, urban, environmental and interior design, space & contents developing. His representative works are ‘H-House’, ‘Urban Boutique Hotel’, french restaurant ‘La Ville de Pins’, ‘Miega’, boutique hair salon, first prize for the ‘The Ritz-Carlton, Seoul Exterior Design Competition’ and design proposal of ‘Ho Chi Minh City Meteorological Administration mixed-use building project’.
+ All images and drawings courtesy BANG by MIN emerging design group
