2024-12-22T06:15:20-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150025490/breaking-the-mega-block-by-dressing-it-unstudio-completes-exterior-work-on-south-korea-mass-housing-project Anastasia Tokmakova 2017-08-30T17:02:00-04:00 >2024-03-15T01:45:58-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/p8/p8efy71srh0f514q.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>Over the past decade of South Korea's rapid urbanization high-density apartment development has become the most popular type of housing in the country, producing a myriad of identical, close-set, utilitarian blocks.</p> <p>When in 2012 the Hyundai Development Company invited UNStudio to&nbsp;design an 'intervention' for two new&nbsp;residential developments in Daegu Wolbae, South Korea's fourth largest city, the firm proposed to simply re-skin the existing structures with multi-color panels. Their plan to break the homogeneity with color was inspired by the city's history of manufacturing clothing and textiles&mdash;the facade designs bare similarity to the texture of a fabric or a media screen.&nbsp;</p> <figure><figure><p><a href="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/ee/ee67y280xfu5mewr.jpg?w=1028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/ee/ee67y280xfu5mewr.jpg?w=514"></a></p><figcaption>Image courtesy of Hyundai</figcaption></figure><p>On the urban scale, color was also utilized for zoning&mdash;as the architects put it, <em>not only reinforcing identity, but also establishing community, revealing principal access points and communicating the relationship between the inside and outside of the two mega-blocks.</em><br></p></figure>...