Junho Kang_Portfolio by Sohun Kang

Works in the Fields Architectural Portfolio

Junho Kang

Fields

Works

1. Becoming a Haenyeo-Architect, Making a Commons (2021) 2. Designs in Emergency (2022) 3. Quarantine with Green (2020) 4. Rowhouse x Redoux (2020) 5. Born Thriving (2019) 6. Hidden Room (2017) 7. Professional Works (2023, 2020, 2017)

1 Horned Turban Shell Roof 4

Becoming a Haenyeo-Architect, Making a Commons GSD Graduate Thesis | Fall 2020, Spring 2021 Advisors | Alfredo Thiermann, Gareth Doherty Project Recognition | High Pass

Haenyeo Chunhwa Kim after diving.

What can an architect do to an imminent extinction of a culture? Through fieldwork, I documented traditional tools, architecture, land-seascapes, and rituals of Haenyeo in Jeju Island, South Korea, engaged with the community, and built a new commons on site. As early as 1105, Hae-nyeo (‘sea-woman’) have subsisted by diving into the sea without breathing apparatus to catch animals and plants, in addition to farming their land and livestock. Across land and sea, they designed, built, and expanded these commons with scarce resources. Badang-bat, or ‘ocean-farmland’, refers to Haenyeo fishery where resources and productions are regulated and shared among them. Bul-teok is an outdoor ‘fire-place’ near a diving point, where Haenyeo changed clothes, rested babies, discussed issues, and prayed for safety. Haenyeo-ui-jip or ‘House(s) of Haenyeo’ were built in the late 1980s by the local government as a modern translation of Bulteok; these single-story bathhouses, cladded with local basalt stones, included a communal bathroom, living room, and kitchenette. More of these commons are being abandoned as the Haenyeo population ages and shrinks - as of 2021, the number of Jeju Haenyeo has decreased by ~83% since 1965. Using an abandoned Bulteok, I built a new commons within the Samyang Haenyeo community where I could stay and participate in their daily practices. The rebuilt fireplace and added roof open new conversations between the closed & closing world of Haenyeo, and the younger generations. 7

During the late 17th century in the Joseon Dynasty, Haenyeo became a key regional taxpayer. Jeju Island, or Tamra, was assigned to send dried abalones for the king in Seoul. Initially the duty was assigned to male divers called pojakin, but soon most pojakin fled the island because they suffered poverty, injuries, and even deaths. When there were too few pojakin left to fill the quota, female divers were forced to collect abalones. Since then, diving became women’s job. Haenyeo dived when the tide was calm. When the ocean was rough, they farmed their garden to feed their families. They went diving until the final few weeks of pregnancy, and even after they got too old and weak to walk on land. For Haenyeo, ocean was their home. In the early 20th century during the Japanese colonial occupation, the rise of tourism, especially sex tourism in Jeju Island used Haenyeo as a sex symbol. Succeeding military regimes of South Korea continued to promote sexualized images of Haenyeo to promote tourism. Even today the dominant narratives of Haeneyo remain polarized between the sex symbol and the image of old mother. What was lost in these narratives was the complex design culture of Haenyeo. They were designers, architects, and landscape architects. They made their own diving tools including diving suits and buoys. They built their fireplaces, piling rocks by their hands. They cultivated underwater landscapes by planting and removing certain species. Most scholars focused on the culture of diving, and no architects had paid attention to how Haenyeo built their environment.

Research | Bulteok

Bosikozi Bulteok Plan

ev Pr er

n ili

Bosikozi Bulteok photograph showing its proximity to the ocean

Bosikozi Bulteok, an outdoor fireplace where Haenyeo changed their clothes, discussed their diving schedules, exchanged information, and took a rest around the fire. The Bulteok had curved walls to block the wind. This Bulteok was no longer used since modern changing rooms with bathtubs, or House of Haenyeo, were built in the 1980s.

Research | Haenyeo’s Connected Ecologies

Hizikia 0.1~

Wuyoung-bat Agricultural field

Haenyeo

Mugwort

Carrot

Garlic Allium sativum

Potato Solanum tuberosum

Haenyeo Rank Ddong-goon : 0~5m Ha-goon: 5~7m Joong-goon: 8~10m Sang-goon: ~15m

Village

Agricultural field

Coastal road

House of Haenyeo

Bulteok

(baby &

On the volcanic soil of the island, Haenyeo farmed various crops including carrot, barley, potato and garlic in their small plot of land called Wuyoung-pat. From the sea, they harvested various seaweeds and caught marine animals. They cultivated the sea into an “ocean field” or Bada-bat by removing, relocating, and fostering species. Being farmers and divers, they connected the terrestrial and aqautic trophic chain. For instance, they used uneatable seaweed, called Deumbuk, as a fertilizer for agriculture. 12

fusiformis ~0.2m

Tot Sargassum fusiforme ~2m

Oyster Pinctada margaritifera 5~30m

Ocean field and fishery

Sea Urchin Anthocidaris crassispina 0~3m

Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin Tursiops aduncus ~100m

Octopus Octopoda 10m~

Horned turban turbo sazae 2~5m Agar Gelidium Amanssi ~5m

Sea Cucumber Holothuroidea 0~10m

Badang-bat

Seaweed Fucus serratus ~10m

Seaweed Saccharina japonica 8~30m

Seaweed Eklonia cava 2~15m

Abalone Haliotis discus lanai 2~15m

Seaweed Undaria pinnatifida 15~20m

Aegibadang Halmagbadang & grandmother’s fishery) Ddong-goon ~5m

Ha-goon (low-rank Haenyeo) 5~7m

Joong-goon (middle-rank Haenyeo) 8~10m

Sang-goon (high-rank Haenyeo) 15m~ 0m 3m 6m 9m 12m 15m 18m 21m

Fieldwork | Haenyeo Architecture

Living room

Bathtub

Entrance

Plan 1:50

Plan and photograph of Samyang House of Haenyeo

Once we arrived to the house, Haenyeo poured all their harvests from their netted bags called mangsari. The clicking sounds of horned turban shells filled the small front road of the house. Without a word, the five Haenyeo sorted the horned turbans based

Kitchen

on their sizes.

After they finished sorting, they placed horned turbans back into mangsari and carried it to a small pond in the waterfront. They tied the bag to an anchor and placed 0

the horned turbans in the pond, storing it for the sale the next morning. Small horned turbans were cooked immediately as they sold the meats to the nearby restaurants. They went back to shower, giving me a small octopus for carrying the harvests. I asked them if I can come back again, and they said yes.

Project | Halmang (Grandmothers’) bulteok

There was an abandoned bulteok in Samyang. They called it Halmang bulteok, meaning grandmothers’ fireplace. I proposed them two things: to rebuild the wall of bulteok, which was destroyed by typhoon years ago, and to add a small roof where people can sit under and rest.

Halmang Bulteok Storage

Storages Shipyard

Samyang House of Haenyeo

Shipyard Owner’s House

Plan shows how the bulteok was cut off by the storage on the

Site Plan

south, owned by the shipyard owner. The bulteok became inaccessible when the shipyard owner built a storage next to it. The haenyeo protested against the construction of the storage but they could not get the bulteok back. Since then, the two groups did not get along.

Project | Halmang (Grandmothers’) bulteok - Existing

Plan shows how the bulteok was cut off by the storage on the south, owned by the shipyard owner. The east section of the surrounding rock wall was in ruin.

Even in section, the storage sat on a Bulteok wall as a foundation. The top soil at the bulteok were trash, including broken glass shards, burnt plastics, ropes, abandoned nets.

Project | Halmang (Grandmothers’) bulteok - Proposed

The proposal included rebuilding the east wall and adding entrance and roof. I wanted to re-purpose the existing storage as a small residence for young people to live with haenyeo while pursuing their career.

The new roof continued the slope of the adjacent roof and marked the place with abalone shells in the landscape.

2 24

Designs in Emergency Professional Work | December 2021 - December 2022 Organization | Family Endeavors

Concept Rendering for Roofscape

In the Spring of 2021, the US Department of Health and Human Services opened an Emergency Intake Site (EIS) for unaccompanied migrant children in Pecos, Texas. The Pecos EIS or Pecos Children’s Center (PCC) provided shelter for boys and girls, 13 to 17 years old who crossed the U.S. border without documents and guardians for reasons of political, economic, and social strife. The campus provided housing, education, and care where they can go through necessary procedures for immigration, get unified with a sponsor, or transferred to an appropriate ORR shelter for longer-term care. The site was previous oil man-camp, owned by Target Hospitality, housing a maximum of 1400 migrant children. In December 2021, I joined a team of educators as a volunteer to help designing trauma-informed spaces on site. I conducted fieldwork on site along with design workshops. The design team concluded that the shelter needs spaces for gathering, solitude, and play. In January 2022, the team built a mock-up for the outdoor gathering space. As the project evolved, I became a full-time designer residing in Texas, recording the lives of children and designing at various scales ranging from campus masterplans, outdoor learning spaces, chapel, library, to way-finding signage, mural, and uniforms so that the environment could become more childfriendly. I initiated 18 projects. Three were realized : outdoor learning space (La Placita), small library (Las Tres Bibliotequitas), and mural (Interactions of Central American Colors). 27

Fieldwork | Design workshop with migrant children

Physical Model by children in the shelter.

The team made a site model for children to share their daily paths through the camp using yarn. Through this exercise we were able to see the main pathways the children took. Then, they used water colors to express their emotions at different places in the site model. Children expressed very positive emotions in the soccer field, but not as positive in the triage tent, cafeteria, and some dorms. Conversations with them revealed systematic reasons why they were unhappy in those spaces, such as lack of freedom, lack of privacy, and lack of meaningful leisure and rest.

Design Workshop Team | Veronica Boix Mansilla (education consultant) , Junho Kang (designer), Paula Garza Gonzalez (learning space consultant), Katie Ryzhikov (horitcultural therapist), Ella Hayslett (horticultural therapist), Ezequiel Bautista (music therapist)

Concept Diagram for La Placita

From several design workshops between December 1st and December 3rd, many children expressed that they needed spaces of green, gathering, solitude, and play. My own experience on site resonated with them. The team moved away from building a greenhouse and decided to approach the campus holistically. Based on the site analysis and design workshops, I proposed a small roof structure to provide a space of gathering surrounded by plants and playful elements.

Architecture Project | La Placita

I provided step-by-step construction manual for the staff on-site, based on simple logic such as “highest anchor is always located at southwest corner.” 30

Construction Team | Junho Kang (designer), Abuobaida Mohed “Obie”, Cipriano Salinas, Munzer Ahmed

Construction Team on site. I led the construction process providing construction document set and teaching the staff on how to build the structure.

Mock-up on site, installed between January 21st until 25th, provided space for kids and staff, who needed outdoor spaces to sit, hold class, rest, and talk. The cost for the shade sail installation was approximately $350, excluding furniture and plants. The team proposes to expand the existing mock-up through installing more shades, planting flowers and trees, and providing furniture, speaker, projector. Staff also designed murals to decorate the surrounding fence to represent the culture of Central America.

Mural Project | Interacting Colors of Central America

Because the number of children changed everyday based on how many children were admitted and discharged, some times there were less than one hundred children, but with 400 staff. The NGO asked me to come up with a quick design project to utilize the staff on site. I proposed a mural project in the isolation area where children with Covid 19 symptoms or other transmitable illness were quarantined.

Construction Team | Junho Kang (designer), Cipriano Salinas (painter), Lily Hernandez(painter)

The mural aimed to reflect the cultural heritage of the youth as well as provide art education. Its geometric language referred to Mayan textiles. Furthermore, by using limited choice of colors on different backgrounds, it evoked how colors interact with one another, as Josef Albers theorized in his book “Interactions of Colors.”

3 The City Methodist Church in Gary, ID 36

Quarantine With Green GSD Option Studio | Fall 2020 Module 1 Instructor | Rok Oman, Špela Videcnik Project Recognition | High Pass

Pandemic is not an equalizer. It rather exploits vulnerable preconditions- be it physical, mental, spatial, economic, and urban. It created a large population of people who were required to quarantine and lock-down cities. Many people lost their jobs, and could no longer afford food. Such food insecurities were pervasive in the U.S. that one in five households were considered food insecure. This project proposed using greenhouses as a quarantine space and means of production. During quarantine, people will stay in greenhouses where they can use their time and energy to produce some food for leisure, their own consumption, or their neighbors who are food insecure. The chosen site is an abandoned church in Gary, Indiana, located at the heart of downtown. The city has been shrinking. The population had shrunk to half of its peak since the 1960s. The population decline meant less revenue for the city while an increase in vacant and blighted properties, the maintenance cost of infrastructure, and public health costs. Within these vicious cycles of urban decline, the City Methodist Church stood in ruin. This project proposed to install greenhouses within the existing church envelope to provide quarantine spaces during the pandemic. People will quarantine alone but participate in a shared project of urban farming. Post pandemic, the shared memory of farming will become a foundation to establish an urban farming school where different stages of the plant life cycle will be arranged in relation to the cycles of human habitation. When the abandoned church is activated again, the project can be a turning point for the city of Gary to fight against the urban decline. 39

Program Diagram

Before and After Covid-19 Modules

Those isolation units will change its spatial programs to support food production post Covid. Moreover, they will extend and reshape to support other serving purposes, such as laboratories and classrooms.

Structural System

9’ 3’

pre-cut steel members

3’

shop-made ladder

Module Construction

Module Connection

Prismatic Truss

greenhouse modules

Struts

shop-made ladder

Elevation

Prismatic Truss

Section

Pre-fabricated space frame allows the quick and easy construction of structure independent from the existing church structure. Greenhouses will be mounted on the frame. 45

Post Covid-19 Section

1. Germination Room

3. Inflorescence Room

5. Cafe Lounge

Germination / Seeding (2-3 weeks) Maximum Sunlight required (24 hours, 7080% humidity, in relatively high temperature (22-28 celsius).

Inflorescence / Fertilization (6 weeks) Reduce the sun exposure (less than 12 hours), Required relatively high temperature (28 celsius). Fertilization is necessary.

Semi-outdoor environment where seating and tables are provided.

2. Budding Room

4. Shared Workspace

6. Farmer’s Market

Roots and stems grow and require 12-18 hours of sun exposure every day, in diffused sunlight. Ideal temperature range between 20-24 celsius. Because the stage requires relatively dry and good air circulation, high tunnel greenhouse module is preferred.

Temperate environment for the community to gather. Provide high sceiling and easy access.

Those vegetables and plants grown in the greenhouses and nearby farms could be sold in the farmer’s market in the courtyard.

Thank you.