Designing Sustainable Korean Apartments through the Combination of Wood Infill Units and Concrete Open Structure System

Abstract

This study aims to build a new housing model in which the current reinforced concrete Apartments are re-imagined as sustainable, future-oriented, and wood-based vertical living spaces. In this process, we argue that wood is the proper material for future housing. By employing wood"s regenerative potential, the study suggests that a wood-based infill housing combined with the existing skeletons of reinforced concrete is the proper answer to future housing demands as well as the impending global warming and environmental crisis. Critiquing the current culture of Korean apartments that have exacerbated our contemporary environmental problems, the Wood Infill Unit and Concrete Open Structure provides a paradigm shift from the unsustainable practices of reinforced concrete construction and its subsequent resource depletion. Along with the sustainable agenda, the new vertical residence design proposes the novel method of placing individual wood houses on “vertical land” made of reinforced concrete or steel frames. The result is that the Wood Infill Unit and Concrete Open Structure re-establish the material base of contemporary high-rise residences: from concrete and steel to wood. This hybrid apartment shows how introducing the material of wood into existing construction bases can open a new organization of building industries, while addressing critical issues of environmental sustainability by imagining the future potential of wood.