How did a phone call to Paris launch an architecture firm in Seoul? “It was kind of destiny,” says JOHO Architecture principal Jeonghoon Lee. He had been studying and practicing architecture in Europe for seven years when a relative from his native Korea contacted him. The man was working on a project, but had fired the architect. He needed someone he could trust. Lee agreed to take on the job—the Herma Parking Building in Yongin, a city 25 miles outside of Seoul. He soon found that managing it from Paris was too difficult, so he moved to Seoul and set up JOHO Architecture in 2009. That first commission led to more, and now JOHO has five completed projects and seven designers on staff.
The name JOHO has two sources. It's a nickname Lee used in France, since it was easier than Jeonghoon for his classmates to pronounce. And in Korean, “jo” means “constructing” and “ho,” “liking.” “Enjoy Construction” is a good fit for a firm that focuses on material explorations. Lee uses wood, brick, and metal in their raw forms. “I want to explore the essence of the material,” he says. But by employing common elements in uncommon ways, he produces unexpected results. For the Namhae Cheo-ma House, for example, he connected 500 pieces of 11.5-foot aluminum louvers—standard pieces made for fences—into a curving facade. For Egg 333 he took off-the-shelf wood louvers, split them in two, and fitted them over the existing brick facade of a residential building. These and JOHO's other projects repeat materials in layers to create sculptural surfaces.
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