GHOST BARSTAIRS explores traces left in an empty building in Seoul
Design studio Sukchulmok and artist Kangyeon Lee present GHOST BARSTAIRS: Temporary Hypotheses in a vacant reinforced-concrete building in Sinsa-dong, Seoul, shortly before its demolition is completed. With accumulated finishes removed, the building’s exposed structural frame becomes the setting for an exhibition exploring the space between its former use and an undefined future.
The title outlines three elements of the project: GHOST, referring to traces of what has disappeared; BAR, describing rigid lines that establish new structures and boundaries; and STAIRS, suggesting layers and movement through vertical space. Light entering the building from the basement to the rooftop illuminates the exposed frame, where Sukchulmok’s experimental furniture intersects with Lee’s sculptural works. Set within an unfinished spatial canvas, these installations serve as a ‘temporary hypothesis (假設),’ a moment caught in transience and a sculptural query cast into the realm of undefined potential.
Timber and steel form new structures within the concrete shell
Studio Sukchulmok explores numerical proportions through the physical properties of stone, steel, and wood. On the first floor, a central booth combining semicircular timber and a steel cone anchors the space. Artist Kangyeon Lee draws on a past labor experience placing ham on pizza dough on a production line. He translates the resulting sense of alienation into works that evoke anonymous figures obscured by cycles of consumption and forgetting. Using materials such as metal and plastic, his sculptures introduce contrasting forms within the raw concrete structure.
A further spatial intervention by BRBB design practice occupies the basement, where plywood panels meet, curved, and leaned against one another to form self-supporting structures. These elements operate independently of conventional partitions or circulation routes, treating the arrangement of materials as a way to define space. Installed shortly before the building’s next phase, GHOST BARSTAIRS uses furniture, sculpture, and temporary structures to examine the possibilities of an unfinished architectural setting. The exhibition documents a brief interval in which the building’s former identity had receded and its future remained open.
the exhibition captures a temporary state before the building enters its next phase
project info:
name: GHOST BARSTAIRS: Temporary Hypotheses
architects: sukchulmok | @sukchulmok
artist: Kangyeon Lee | @gvngyeon
spatial intervention & installation: BRBB | @brbb_arch
location: Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
photographer: Hong Seokgyu | @seokgyuhong
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: Christina Vergopoulou | designboom
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