Meritz Securities
GangneungTraining  Center

At the core of a corporate training facility& employee retreat is the growth of the bond between the employees and the corporation.  Values, orientation, and team-building are the principles that define the culture, all of which sustain employee loyalty and retention.

Physically, this activity is enhanced by removal from the daily work environment to a place and a setting that can serve to reinforce a focus on the culture. 

Architecturally a place like this is not just a quasi resort, but a place that is not the office.  Nor is it a place of play and recreation although that may be a means by which cultural sharing is reinforced.

The site chosen by Meritz, two hours away from Seoul on the eastern seaboard of Korea, set among hills and low pine trees offers a uniquely strong character that lends itself to a place to define the culture of the corporation in a very unique manner. 

The concept is to reinforce that departure from both the office environment and the urban environment.  The difference between a seaside resort and its obvious amenities and the Training center is that the center internalizes itself as a precinct for the select few. 

Both concepts presented are organized around a communal open space.  Invariably the spaces in between the buildings attain the ownership of the group as is similar to  a University Campus, a community, or a town square. 

One enters this site across a stretch of open landscape, defined on either side by naturally forested hills.  The arrival at the communal space is sensed as a place beyond, and a place not a part of the larger community but a reservefor the Meritz employees and their families.  The open landscape at the entry is important as a defining difference from the adjacent commercialism of the beachfront community.  Whether across grasslands or shallow marshes and lakes, the entry transforms those arriving into a place unique and removed from the outside. 

Once within the precinct, the architectural elements of the various buildings are of a human scale while the expression externally is towards the broader external environment.  At this point, the automobile is out of sight and circulation is by foot through a garden setting from one part of the project to another.

The site provides a natural valley between two ridges.  Both schemes allocate the accommodations on the eastern most ridge to take advantage of the ocean views as well as the mountain views to the west.  Scheme A bridges the valley with the training building, and scheme B creates a village of buildings on the western side of the valley.  In both, the valley is utilized as the communal open space at the core of the project.

One scheme envisions a bridge building that allegorically represents the transition of the experience towards a closer bond in the way that a bridge creates a realization of transformation simply through its use. 

The other scheme focuses on the scale of the buildings that are associated not with the office in Seoul and the intense urbanity of transit and automobiles, but on human interaction by serendipitous meetings along garden paths.

The examination of similar facilities created by other Korean and American Corporations seemed to offer only the office building once removed into a more suburban environment. 

The objective for Meritz would be to transform the experience in such a way that could redefine how Corporations engage their employees.  Oddly, the best benchmark for this model is not a specific corporate retreat, but arguably one of the Worlds’ corporate retreats, the Bohemian Grove near the Russian River in California.The setting is very similar to the site and the human interaction is at the highest order.  Exclusion of others and chance opportunities for conversation and dialog while clearly belonging as a group in a setting of presentations, entertainment and camaraderie is a model that seems appropriate.

The Architectural expression has a serious value in its representation about the shared values of the corporation towards a successful future.  Efficient, modern, and most of all, that which touches the soul should be the underlying association with the values of Meritz.  Beyond the similar associations with the offices in Seoul and Busan, this facility will draw heavily on the amenity of landscape to define those values in the communal spaces.