User:Kim632/Urban Hive

The Urban Hive is a building designed by In-Cheurl Kim located at the address of 200-7 Nonhyun-dong, Gangnam-gu in Seoul, Korea. It is called the Urban Hive because of its unusual structure.

It has a concrete skin on the outside of the building, with the main structure of building inside of the skin. Therefore, the main support frame of the building is located on the exterior of the building. There are no structural support columns or frames inside of the building. This special structure allows the Urban Hive to have a unique exterior design and bigger open spaces on the interior of the building when compared to high rises built with conventional structural methods. In Korea, most buildings were built using curtain wall structures.

Traditionally, when people try to make high-rise buildings, they build a steel framed foundation and use concrete with constructive materials to build a skyscraper. However, In-cheurl Kim, the architect of the Urban Hive, tried unconventional solutions to build buildings which are built very differently from conventional buildings. With his three year design effort, a new approach to constructing a skyscraper was born in Korea.

With a new structural system for constructing high-rises, the Urban Hive was awarded the grand prize in the Seoul Architecture Award in 2009. It was 27th masterpiece   awarded the Seoul Architecture Award.

Summary

 * Architect: In-Cheurl Kim, Archium


 * Address: 200-7 Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea


 * Plottage: 1,000.90 m^2


 * Floor Area: 584.78 m^2


 * Total Floor Area: 10,166.89 m^2


 * Floor Space Index: 798.69%


 * Build Space: b4/17f


 * Structure: Reinforced Concrete(RC) + T-type Steel Composite beam(TSC)


 * Design Period: June 2004 ~ April 2007


 * Construction Period: February 2006 ~ September 2009


 * Client: Urban Hive Inc.

Honeycomb Structure
The height of the Urban Hive is about seventy meters. Using an outside concrete wall instead of curtain wall structure, it is relatively hard to make a building this high because of the weight of concrete. The Urban Hive used honeycomb structure frame for the outside wall. Honeycomb structure looks like hexagon shapes of a hive. The middle of each hexagon is left to be empty. With this emptied hall, the weight of concrete wall could have been reduced. Also, honeycomb structure is known as the strongest structure in the nature.

As you can see in the picture, around the hole in the middle, there are steel reinforcements weaved with great delicacy. This kind of structure is call diagrid. A hole is 1.5 meters in diameter, and there are 3371 holes total in the outside wall of the Urban Hive. With this great number of holes, the Urban Hive could reduce great amount of weight in concrete. This is why the Urban Hive could go up to seventy meters with concrete wall.

Seoul Architecture Award
The Urban Hive awarded the grand prize in Seoul Architecture Award in 2009. The examiners of the Seoul Architecture Award judged the Urban Hive as followings.

''The Urban Hive presents a new paradigm in tall building in high-density cities. Effectiveness in organization of non-living spaces, application of double walls to support the building from wind in high altitude, and difference in creativeness in designing a building from others were the most important parts that we chose this building. ''.

About The Architect
In Cheurl Kim was born in 1947, graduated from Hong-ik University and later Kook-min University Graduate School. Um, Duk-moon's firm recruited him when he graduated from Hong-ik University in 1972, and he worked for the firm for fourteen years. He opened up his own firm in 1986 and named it Inje construction company. He later renamed it Archium. He approaches architecture with a traditional Korean philosophy based on 'the beauty of absence.'


 * 1947 - born in Jin Hae, Korea
 * 1972 - graduated from Hong-ik University, School of Architecture, worked at the firm of Um, Duk-moon
 * 1981 - M.A. Architecture, school of architecture, Kook-min University
 * 1986 - founded INJE architects
 * 1988 - personal exhibition at Yun-hee plastic art hall
 * 1989 - Kim, In-cheurl work collection
 * 1995 - renamed INJE as ARCHIUM
 * 1996 - awarded by KIA (Ik-san Children’s House)
 * 1997 - third prize in Seoul Architecture Award (nomad)
 * 1998 - third prize in Seoul Architecture Award (mesotron)
 * 1999 - awarded by Korea Architectural Culture (Kim, Ok-gil Memorial Hall, third prize in Seoul Architecture Award (Kim, Ok-gil Memorial Hall)
 * 2007 - Kim, Shoo Geun Prize (Woongjin Paju office)
 * 2009 - awarded the grand prize in Seoul Architecture Award (Urban Hive)


 * Present - professor, department of architecture, Chung-Ang University