Empty Garden

에어부산 사옥

Year of Completion: 2017

Client: Air Busan

This is one of a few design-build projects of PARKKIM. With a given budget in the limited time of three months, we led from the design to the construction of the pavilion and the furniture, as well as other landscape elements for the headquarters of Air Busan, a low-cost airline based in Busan, Korea. The project consists of two parts: exterior space on the ground level, including the surrounding streets, and the rooftop garden only for the employees.

On the ground level, the courtyard-like space is supposed to be used for the occupants of two adjacent office buildings, mainly as the passageway between them. While guiding circulation without impediment, the garden also needs to represent the company’s identity since the space is facing the street without a fence or wall. The bands of shrubs were laid out in alignment with flights’ landing direction toward the runway of adjacent Gimhae International Airport. The triangular precast concrete module was designed to flexibly fit into the subtle undulation of the ground to accommodate the flight attendants’ need for carrying luggage.

More time and effort were put into the rooftop garden, since it was required to install a shade structure and portable furniture, as well as conventional “landscaping” with planting.

First of all, PARKKIM convinced the client to limit the area of planting to the periphery of the roof, for efficient drainage and convenience of management. Nandina domestica (sacred bamboo) was planted for its fall foliage and winter interest. Then the space shaped by the planting is expected to be empty when there is no event planned. It is believed that a shade structure does not need to provide complete opaqueness since people would rarely come up to the roof during extremely warm weather, and an appropriate level of porosity will let users enjoy natural breeze and sunlight during spring and fall. So a lightweight structure was designed that sustains the stability by the tension between each element without supporting columns or legs. It also resembles Korean traditional window gratings in the sense that both cast sublime shadows onto the ground. Thanks to the porous pavilion, users are exposed to the surrounding landscape of mountains and  rivers, so the empty garden is full of other pleasures.

photo credit

jong oh kim