Ujoohyun: A Neighbourhood Building with a Skylight

Seoul's residential neighbourhoods are full of small multi-storey buildings called "neighbourhood living facilities": five floors of mixed programme on a tiny lot, built to the maximum envelope allowed by code. Most of them are forgettable. Ujoohyun, designed by Chun Architects, is not. It is a five-storey building on a corner lot in a dense low-rise area that manages to be spatially generous, materially precise, and architecturally ambitious without exceeding its zoning.

The building contains commercial space on the lower floors, a residential unit on the upper floors, and a private study under the pitched roof at the top. The programme is ordinary. The architecture is not.

A Dark Brick Volume in a Red-Brick Neighbourhood

The building reads as two materials stacked: a pale concrete base containing the commercial floors, and a dark brick upper volume containing the residence. The dark brick is laid with alternating protruding headers, creating a subtle textured relief that catches light and shadow across the facade. The pitched top, clad in the same dark brick, gives the building a silhouette that is distinct from the flat-roofed apartment blocks around it.

From the rooftops, the building is immediately identifiable: a dark angular form among red terracotta and concrete. This is neighbourhood architecture that takes a position without shouting.

The Skylight Void: Light from the Top

The defining spatial element is a vertical void that cuts through the centre of the building, rising from the upper floors to an angular skylight at the roof. The concrete walls of the void are left raw. Light washes down them, changing through the day. At the top, the skylight aligns with the pitched roof geometry, creating an angular funnel of concrete that frames the sky.

This void does three things. It brings natural light deep into the section. It creates a visual connection between the residential floors. And it gives the building an interior scale that contradicts its small footprint. You look up and see sky. In a five-storey building on a 50 square metre lot, that is the difference between living in a box and living in a space.

The Top Floor Study

The top floor sits under the pitched roof within the dark brick volume. It is a private study: a long timber desk runs along one wall, with exposed concrete on three sides and a birch-panelled ceiling above. The angular skylight cuts into the roof directly overhead. This is the quietest room in the building, and the one with the most light.

The combination of raw concrete, warm birch, and direct sky produces a space that feels monastic. It is designed for concentration. If you are an architect who works from home, this is the room you would design for yourself.

The Residential Floors

The living spaces are double-height in parts, with concrete walls and full-height windows that frame the neighbourhood. The kitchen features a black steel stair with a marble-veined stone wall behind it. The material palette is narrow and consistent: exposed concrete, birch panels, black steel, and dark stone. No plasterboard, no paint. Every surface is either structure or a deliberate finish.

The Commercial Floors

The lower floors are open-plan commercial spaces with exposed concrete ceilings, polished floors, and birch-panelled zones. One floor functions as a gallery with art hung on the concrete walls. The louvred window wall on the commercial floor provides privacy while admitting light. The basement has its own character: concrete block walls, metal railings, and a stair that reads as infrastructure.

Plans, Elevations, and Sections

The plans show the compact footprint and how the stair core, skylight void, and open floors are organised within it. The fourth floor plan shows the rooftop terrace with planting. The fifth floor shows the attic study under the pitched roof. The sections reveal the full vertical sequence: basement, commercial, gallery, residence, terrace, study, skylight.

Why This Project Matters

Neighbourhood living facilities are the most common building type in Seoul. There are tens of thousands of them, and almost none are designed by architects. They are developer products, built to formula, maximising floor area and minimising cost. Ujoohyun proves that the same zoning, the same programme, and the same budget constraints can produce architecture. The skylight void costs a few square metres of floor area. It gives back a spatial quality that no amount of floor area can replace.

If you are designing small multi-storey mixed-use buildings in dense urban neighbourhoods, this project is worth studying for how a single vertical void transforms a routine brief into something memorable.

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Project credits: Ujoohyun Neighborhood Living Facility by Chun Architects. Seoul, South Korea. Photographs: Kim Yongkwan, Yseo Chun.