Atelier of spatial matters was awarded second prize in an international competition for a publicly accessible museum storage facility situated in an outskirt of Seoul.

While architectural endeavors remain concentrated toward cultural buildings, the new spatial realities of storage continue to be overlooked. The majority of cultural artifacts are now stored offsite in nondescript and inaccessible storage facilities, all concealed from the general public. Yet, for all of the cultural significance held within, the architecture has been decidedly humdrum. They are simply sheer technical buildings largely driven by practical and regulatory requirements, with obscurity as a virtue.

The proposal speculates on the architectural possibilities of the tectonics of storage—of vast protective enclosures, automated storage and retrieval systems, random assemblages of objects, high-tech security, and carefully calibrated atmospheres—to amplify its public experience as an oversized cabinet of curiosities. It looks into the potentials for opportunistic inhabitation through experimental means of exhibition. It considers the curatorial and cultural implications of an art shed with a revolving hoard of items of varying significance, while ruminating on the new ways people interact with art.

The structure begins as a stark storage box. Its ground floor plan is an exercise in efficiency; all of the building’s operations, from unloading to storage, are arranged in a logical sequence on a flat plane. Striated bands of five different storage types hold a diverse range of artifacts.

Public circulation components—an escalator, a ramp, and a bridge—are appended to the façade as pronounced elements that negotiate the terrain, organize the surrounding landscape, and announce a public program. They jut out of the structure as whimsical elements, provoking curiosity and presenting themselves as urban markers to the public. A series of rooms is distributed uniformly on the upper level overlooking the vast interior, and elevated catwalks traverse the dense storage space as trails full of serendipitous discoveries.