Poly villa

Designed by Farming Architecture in South Korea, the Poly villa poses the question of how a fixed architectural structure can respond to the patterns and desires of the occupants’ constantly changing lives. Poly villa has indeterminate “gaps” between personal and family space. These gaps are margins between individuals and between spaces, and are possibilities that connect living space and the lives of occupants. Poly villa makes active use of ambivalent spaces where interior meets exterior or where such boundaries are inverted.

  The entire mass can broadly be divided into service space, family space and personal space. The living room, kitchen, utility room, bathroom and inner courtyard are placed in the family space, while the linear core is a circulatory, open space in the form of a corridor. It has been made use of the minimized boundaries between the kitchen, dining room and living room, where spatial hierarchy changes flexibly according to need. In the upper mass, consisting of a private space, the parents’ bedroom and children's area are placed independently of each other, ensuring mutual privacy.

The pocket spaces on the left and right sides of the building and the small courtyard in the center of the living room put the lower floors in direct contact with the earth, adding ventilation and lighting that would otherwise be inadequate. The outer stairs at the front and the spiral staircase in the back yard provide three-dimensional links between the building, the site and the rooftop space.

Poly Villa, Kyunggi province, South Korea    
Architects: Farming Architecture
Design team: Jangwon Choi, Sunghyun Ahn, Yeongyeong Hong
Structural engineering: HI Structural Engineers
Installations: I-Ecoeng
Contractor: The Barn construction co.
Area: 253 sqm
Completion: 2017