Week 2

Hanok: Traditional, Ecological Design

It’s a shock to me that week two of my IRES experience is already coming to an end, as the time is flying by. In the lab, I have continued to brush up on my Rhino skills by modeling more complex items and I’m excited to continue learning by incorporating Grasshopper into my workflow. We have also gotten support from the IRES grant to gain access to advanced generative AI. In the coming weeks, we will use it to assist our purpose of automating the process for carbon neutral design.

Unfortunately, I was sick with a minor cold Monday afternoon through Wednesday and while I was able to continue my Rhino practice remotely, I wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have been had I not been sick. That also reduced the amount of cultural immersion I was able to do. However, when I was feeling better on Wednesday evening I had a walk through a nearby neighborhood park that I had jogged through previously. Despite my assumptions of it being a ‘small local park’, it was huge and had a ton of open amenities – just some of the things I noticed were a large climbing wall, exercise area, convenience store, track, stream that children were playing in, a fountain with music and light shows timed throughout the day, and boards for a tile game that looked to me like Mahjong. Nearby was also a mixed-use trail that ran underneath street level along a stream. From an urban planning perspective, it’s impressive that this park, though not a tourist destination, has such a wide breadth of activities. It makes me wonder if this is the case in other parks throughout the city. Similarly, from a water resource perspective, I am impressed that such a river is not buried and is instead its ecosystem services are maximized by adding paths for pedestrians and bikes. I’ve learned that in many cities, natural waterways were buried underground to make way for development. This was previously the case for Cheonggyecheon before the city revitalized it (I haven’t visited yet, but other cohort members have and I’m excited to go back with them).

 It was fascinating to learn about many of the environmentally conscious design choices common to these homes over times: ondol natural heating systems, eaves and awnings long enough to shade in the summer but short enough to let sun heat the home in the winter, and regenerative building materials.