Junggok-dong Public Parking Lot Complex Building
Design Competition

The city can sometimes feel too flat. Streets run straight, and buildings often become walls. Yet here, in the heart of Junggok, the city encounters the mountain once again. The ridgeline of Yongmasan Mountain unfolds gently, while Gingorang Stream flows toward the distant Jungnangcheon, weaving through the landscape over time. Drawing upon this story of mountain and water, we developed the architecture of the site. More than a simple structure, this complex forms an “urban mountain” between Yongmasan Mountain and Jungnangcheon Stream.

Mountains can be steep and difficult to climb, and their experience is not always accessible to everyone. At the Junggok-dong Public Parking Complex, however, we wanted all residents to enjoy the mountain—one of Junggok-dong’s defining natural features—in diverse ways, alongside the building’s primary programs of community amenities and leisure and welfare facilities for older adults. Beginning with the outdoor spaces at ground level, generously opened to the public, a continuous spatial sequence rises through the upper levels, offering an experience akin to ascending a mountain. As visitors follow this path upward, they encounter new perspectives on their surroundings. Here, residents look out toward nature, engage with the neighborhood, and share moments of everyday life as they walk through and ascend the building. In this way, the proposed complex becomes a new center for the community of Junggok—literally, the “village in the middle.”