C3 no.445 (2026 Sep/Oct)
Architecture as Principle of Time, Aspects of Worldview _ Young Cheol Kim
Contextualizing Korean Architecture
Contextualizing Korean Architecture _ Sung Hong Kim
How Is Seoul Produced?
How Is Seoul Produced? _ Dongwoo Yim
A Story of Coexistence Built in Red Brick
LegoLego _ Seoga Architects
Interview _ Seunghyun Oh + HyoJin Jeon
A Margin Made by Order
Raw House _ Order Matter
Interview _ Youseok Cho + Riah Ju
Round Table Talk _ Seoga Architects + Order Matter
Strangers to Time
Strangers to Time _ Youngtae Park
Affinities of Time in Friction
P House, Cheongun-dong _ KHYarchitects + Heechul Jung
Interview _ HyoYoung Kim + Youngtae Park
Building Without Rebuilding
A House over a House _ Becban architecture
Interview _ Wonil Kim + Youngtae Park
New Projects
Between Forest and Horizon
Cemetery Ankaran _ void arhitektura + Studio AKKA
Interview _ Uroš Rustja, Mina Hiršman and Primož Žitnik + Michèle Woodger
Mass timber complex integrates native vegetation
Oceanika Coliving _ EOVAStudio + Bakpak Architects
Interview _ Juan José Baena Martinez, José María González Chamorro + Herbert Wright
Steel scarf wraps an industrial campus
EMIT HQ _ CLB Architects
Interview _ Eric Logan, Sarah Kennedy, Andy Ankeny, Jeffrey Johnston + Herbert Wright
Place of origin 대한민국
0.36 Reward points to be earned to be earned
/Region
C3 is a premium architecture magazine internationally recognized for its depth of critical insight and visual excellence. As the only Korean architecture publication widely read in global cities such as New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo, C3 documents contemporary architecture through a sharp and discerning lens.
C3 no.445 (2026-Sep/Oct)
This issue of C3 takes a closer look at the distinct urban conditions and temporal forces that have shaped Korean architecture. Moving beyond universalized Western frameworks, it traces the architectural logic that emerged from Seoul’s compressed growth and high-density urban fabric, while examining approaches to renovation that carry the accumulated time of old houses into contemporary life.
Young Cheol Kim’s Architecture as Principle of Time, Aspects of Worldview opens the issue by reconsidering the spatial paradigm of modern architecture and proposing time as a fundamental principle through which architecture can be understood. Sung Hong Kim and Dongwoo Yim then turn to the specific realities of Seoul, seeking to understand Korean architecture through the forces that have produced the city and its everyday buildings.
Strangers to Time examines two renovations that approach the past not as a complete narrative to be restored, but as a temporal distance to be negotiated and inhabited anew. The New Projects section extends this inquiry across three international works—from a cemetery in Slovenia and a coliving complex in Spain to an industrial facility in the United States—each establishing new relationships with place through topography, ecology, and material.
Contextualizing Korean Architecture
How Is Seoul Produced?
What conditions have shaped Korean architecture? Sung Hong Kim moves beyond imported concepts of the “vernacular” and essentialist notions of “Koreanness” to trace an architectural order that emerged from Seoul’s compressed growth and dense urban reality. Dongwoo Yim narrows the lens to the city’s small plots and everyday buildings, examining how regulations, land, capital, and program participate in the actual production of Seoul.
Two projects bring these questions into architectural practice. LegoLego by Seoga Architects negotiates coexistence with its neighborhood through the proportions and tectonic order of red brick, while Raw House by Order Matter creates spatial generosity within a clear structural and organizational framework. A round-table conversation between the two practices further explores the realities of designing, building, and inhabiting small-scale architecture in Seoul.
Strangers to Time
Does renovation necessarily mean restoring the memory of the past? In Strangers to Time, Youngtae Park considers the architect as a late-arriving “stranger” confronting a time they have never inhabited, and asks how architecture might establish a new relationship with the traces that remain.
In P House, Cheongun-dong by KHYarchitects + Heechul Jung, red steel and translucent glass blocks are layered against the existing brick house, making temporal distance itself palpable. A House over a House by Becban architecture gathers an old Jeju house and its additions beneath a single expansive roof, creating another spatial layer between the inherited structure and contemporary life. Rather than erasing the past or attempting to reconstruct it intact, both projects leave room for the house to continue accumulating time.
New Projects
Three international projects explore how architecture can establish new relationships with place by responding to radically different landscapes and programs.
Cemetery Ankaran by void arhitektura + Studio AKKA choreographs topography, trees, and ritual movement between a Slovenian forest and the horizon of the Adriatic, creating a contemplative public space for both the living and the dead. Oceanika Coliving by EOVAStudio + Bakpak Architects combines mass timber construction with abundant vegetation to introduce an urban forest and a new model of communal living. In Wyoming, EMIT HQ by CLB Architects wraps a large industrial facility in a sweeping perforated steel screen, mediating between the scale of production and the expansive surrounding landscape.
Across a cemetery, shared housing, and an industrial campus, these projects reveal how topography, ecology, and material conditions can become active generators of architectural experience and new relationships with place.
C3 is a premium architecture magazine internationally recognized for its depth of critical insight and visual excellence. As the only Korean architecture publication widely read in global cities such as New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo, C3 documents contemporary architecture through a sharp and discerning lens.
C3 no.445 (2026-Sep/Oct)
This issue of C3 takes a closer look at the distinct urban conditions and temporal forces that have shaped Korean architecture. Moving beyond universalized Western frameworks, it traces the architectural logic that emerged from Seoul’s compressed growth and high-density urban fabric, while examining approaches to renovation that carry the accumulated time of old houses into contemporary life.
Young Cheol Kim’s Architecture as Principle of Time, Aspects of Worldview opens the issue by reconsidering the spatial paradigm of modern architecture and proposing time as a fundamental principle through which architecture can be understood. Sung Hong Kim and Dongwoo Yim then turn to the specific realities of Seoul, seeking to understand Korean architecture through the forces that have produced the city and its everyday buildings.
Strangers to Time examines two renovations that approach the past not as a complete narrative to be restored, but as a temporal distance to be negotiated and inhabited anew. The New Projects section extends this inquiry across three international works—from a cemetery in Slovenia and a coliving complex in Spain to an industrial facility in the United States—each establishing new relationships with place through topography, ecology, and material.
Contextualizing Korean Architecture
How Is Seoul Produced?
What conditions have shaped Korean architecture? Sung Hong Kim moves beyond imported concepts of the “vernacular” and essentialist notions of “Koreanness” to trace an architectural order that emerged from Seoul’s compressed growth and dense urban reality. Dongwoo Yim narrows the lens to the city’s small plots and everyday buildings, examining how regulations, land, capital, and program participate in the actual production of Seoul.
Two projects bring these questions into architectural practice. LegoLego by Seoga Architects negotiates coexistence with its neighborhood through the proportions and tectonic order of red brick, while Raw House by Order Matter creates spatial generosity within a clear structural and organizational framework. A round-table conversation between the two practices further explores the realities of designing, building, and inhabiting small-scale architecture in Seoul.
Strangers to Time
Does renovation necessarily mean restoring the memory of the past? In Strangers to Time, Youngtae Park considers the architect as a late-arriving “stranger” confronting a time they have never inhabited, and asks how architecture might establish a new relationship with the traces that remain.
In P House, Cheongun-dong by KHYarchitects + Heechul Jung, red steel and translucent glass blocks are layered against the existing brick house, making temporal distance itself palpable. A House over a House by Becban architecture gathers an old Jeju house and its additions beneath a single expansive roof, creating another spatial layer between the inherited structure and contemporary life. Rather than erasing the past or attempting to reconstruct it intact, both projects leave room for the house to continue accumulating time.
New Projects
Three international projects explore how architecture can establish new relationships with place by responding to radically different landscapes and programs.
Cemetery Ankaran by void arhitektura + Studio AKKA choreographs topography, trees, and ritual movement between a Slovenian forest and the horizon of the Adriatic, creating a contemplative public space for both the living and the dead. Oceanika Coliving by EOVAStudio + Bakpak Architects combines mass timber construction with abundant vegetation to introduce an urban forest and a new model of communal living. In Wyoming, EMIT HQ by CLB Architects wraps a large industrial facility in a sweeping perforated steel screen, mediating between the scale of production and the expansive surrounding landscape.
Across a cemetery, shared housing, and an industrial campus, these projects reveal how topography, ecology, and material conditions can become active generators of architectural experience and new relationships with place.
