Location: Seoul, South Korea.

Architect: HAEAHN Architecture, Inc. and H Architecture PC.

The new R&D Center for Nexen, a leading tire company in South Korea, has been completed in Magok-special-district, located at the western edge of Metropolitan Seoul. The building is equipped with multi-disciplinary research and development labs covering all aspects of the company’s technological needs, as well as supporting offices, meeting areas, and welfare facilities for researchers and workers. It also functions as a promotional venue with an exhibition area and library open to the public. The design of the building aims to optimize the complexity of the given program while reinventing a new type of urban research facility suitable for a dense urban context. The building is organized into four programmatic zones while maximizing connectivity and interactivity between zones. The dual-helix form integrates a continuous roof garden and an inner-court together, creating various types of outdoor communicative space for researchers and workers. The heart of the building is the inner courtyard, a sun-filled and fluid green, which provides outdoor areas for gathering, rest, and events for the workers. The building is also designed to respond to the environment to provide comfortable and safe research and working conditions as well as to achieve maximum energy efficiency. The southern and eastern façades feature a shading-louver system that efficiently controls the amount of direct sunlight reaching the work space and reflected sunlight reaching back from the inner courtyard. The louvers along with the landscaping surrounding the courtyard passively allow the building to block heat radiation and efficiently reduce heating and cooling loads with natural ventilation systems throughout the entire building. The high-tech R&D building not only symbolizes the essential meaning of tire technology but also aims to redefine the typology of an urban research facility.

Photo credit: L2 ARCHIVE.