Project text Galleria Department Store, Seoul, South Korea 2003 -2004:

Within Seoul, the Galleria Department Store exists within a typical system of highly specialized department stores, each representing a microcosm with its own eco-climate to which its customers are finely attuned. Situated at the top end of this system, the Galleria Fashion Hall together with the Galleria Masterpiece Hall in close vicinity carry a large number of highly prestigious brands and consequently attract visitors from a wide area, including Japan. The Galleria Fashion Hall is prominently situated in the Apgujeong-dong district, on of the trendiest commercial districts in Seoul.

However, from the outside the store appears unremarkable. In October 2003 the Galleria hired UNStudio to design a new faade and interior to mark the store’s transformation (in their own marketing-originated words) ‘from novel to noble’, becoming more ‘luxurious’ while remaining ‘trendy and unique’.

UNStudio’s exterior renewal, completed in September 2004, exists of the application of 4330 glass disks on the metal substructure that is directly attached to the existing faade. These discs are treated with a special iridescent foil, which causes constant changes in the perception of the faade. At night, a special lighting scheme, designed cooperatively by UNStudio and ArupLighting, illuminates the discs by reflecting the dynamics of the weather conditions that happened during the day.

The interior renovation is focused on the general store areas in between the individual branded shops. UNStudio has sought to streamline the circulation spaces, providing ‘catwalks’ of light-colored, glossy co-coordinated walkways and ceilings, which improve orientation and give the store a super-bright, fresh image.

1)
Interior concept:
For the updating of the existing interiors, our inspiration is the fashion catwalk; the customer should find himself in the focus of the fashion world, feeling himself/herself as the attractive model in midst the glamorous Fashion Hall.
The interior design focuses on the elimination of superfluous and outdated details and the introduction of two new Big Details: the escalator which becomes a moving event space, and the ceiling lighting which becomes a device that provides a fluent directionality and dynamics to the shop floors.

1.1)
Lighting and concept for interior catwalks:
For the main circulation corridors (catwalks) the lighting is integrated within the dropped ceiling. The illumination of the corridor is designed as a continuous lighting element, which consist of linear rail following the direction of the corridors and bending whenever there is a change in direction. Below these rails a white plastic foil is stretched and on every second rail TL-lights are mounted. The semi-opaque white foil spreads the light equally creating a continuous field above the main corridors. The combination of up-lights and rails casts multiple shadows on the white foil that create depth in the ceiling and where directions change, these shadows emphasize way-finding. The rails are straight along the corridor’s length and turn the corners, always keeping the same radii. Where two corridors connect in a T-crossing or X-crossing, the rails bend to accommodate directions.

during the process and several on site mock-ups were made in order to test and forecast the effects generated during day and night.

Day:
During the day the atmospheric and weather changes influence the degree of reflection and absorption of light and color on the glass circles, so that from different viewing points the appearance of each disc and the total surface changes constantly according to those external conditions that are beyond human control.

Night:
During the night situation of the building the lighting design developed for the faade additionally starts to interact with the material condition of the glass discs. By placing behind each of the glass discs an LED-light source and by controlling the lights digitally one by one, the possibilities to manipulate color and light emission become endless. Recording day-to-day weather conditions and processing the data with the computer before projecting them in transformed version onto the glass skin is just one out of many possibilities of the technology used. Our faade solution also has the potential to be adapted for special occasions and can be changed over time according to seasons, fashion events and artistic inspirations. Nevertheless, the character of the glass disc skin is different from the principle technologies used in screens, since whatever visual information is projected onto the discs; it will be transformed due to the material conditions of the glass disc and foils. The new faade is not a projection screen in the conventional sense, but it interacts with the projected information and generates a circular pixilated visual face by night.

Quotes Ben van Berkel:

“As an architect I am interested in dressing the future. Like a fashion designer, but on a much larger scale, I am helping the world figure out how it will look tomorrow.”

team: Nicola Kühnle, Florian Erhard, Michael Fischinger, Christoph Friedrich, Peter Holzer, Christopf Krinn, Stefan Linder, Simon Schneider, Walter Ulrich, Gabriele Vlker, Katrin Widmann, Christina Brecher, Stefanie Hertwerck, Ingolf Gssel, Ulla Ittensohn, Volker Hilpert, Thomas Koch, Ulrike Kolb, Bendix Pallesen- Mustikay, Marc Schwesinger and Thuy Duong Du, Kathrin Steimle, Florian Goscheff, Thomas Hertlein, Yvonne Galdys, Deniz Hocaoglu, Katerina Karapanceva, Anka Volk, Patrick Yong

Exhibition Concept and Design: HG Merz, Stuttgart
Interior: UNStudio with Concrete Architectural Associates, Amsterdam
Curtain design: Inside outside - Petra Blaisse, Amsterdam

Advisors:
Structure: Werner Sobek Ingenieure, Stuttgart
Geometry: Arnold Walz, Stuttgart
Climate engineering: Transsolar Energietechnik, Stuttgart
Cost estimation: Nanna Fütterer, Stuttgart/Berlin
Infrastructure: David Johnston, Arup, London
Landscaping: Knoll koplan GmbH, Sindelfingen