Hanwha Group is one of the largest South Korean business conglomerates, including both chemical plants and shopping centers. It was the malls that the Dutch bureau UNStudio dealt with for Hanwha in Seoul and Cheonan, and now it is the turn of an office building with an area of almost 58 thousand m2. Since one of the activities of the group is the production of solar panels, making the obsolete building technically and aesthetically energy efficient was the main goal of the reconstruction.
UNStudio won the competition for the renovation of the building in 2013, the work was completed in December 2019. They encompassed the façade, the “adjacent territory” and public spaces: from the lobby and assembly hall to the dining room and top management area on the upper floors. In order not to stop the work of employees, three floors were simultaneously modernized, immediately outside and inside.
However, the main attention was paid to the facade: the architects gave it the effect of “diversity, asymmetry, complexity”. Alternating stripes of opaque panels and single-layer dark glazing have been replaced by energy-efficient transparent glass and intricately patterned aluminum profiles.
On the northern facade, the openings between the profiles are larger, since their role of sun protection is not so important, and in the southern facade they are denser. The same goes for the views: "windows" are largest where perspectives open up, and more compact in places where neighboring buildings are close.
The angle of the majority of the glass panels protects them from direct sunlight, but the upper part of the southern facade is specifically directed towards them: its opaque parts are covered with solar panels. They are also placed in the central zone of the southern façade.
In the interiors, the architects paid special attention to the “soothing” range of colors and materials, good illumination, and clarity of orientation.
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zooming 1/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 2/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 3/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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Image 
zooming 1/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 2/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 3/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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Image 
zooming 1/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 2/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 3/3 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 1/5 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 2/5 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 3/5 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 4/5 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
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zooming 5/5 Hanwha Headquarters - Renovation Photo © Rohspace
