THE RESULTS

WINNER

CROSSING PARALLEL(S) : 
​BATHHOUSE AS A METAPHORICAL THEATER
[STUDIO M.R.D.O.   &   Studio LaM]     JINHYUN JUN    MINKYUNG SONG     KANGIL JI​
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
38th parallel is not a thin superficial line, rather a thickened situation: it has been solidified by accumulation of ambivalent emotions - tensions and relaxations - between North and South. In the proposed bathhouse, represented as a ‘metaphorical theater’, visitors (actors/audiences) coming from each side reproduce the process of such solidification while walking down the double helix ramp; experience of merging and diverging, moments of crossing uncrossable lines, while being more away from each other. Upon reaching the communal pool, all such experience is liquefied into water, and debris of emotions brought by visitors soaks into each other’s skin. 

RUNNER-UP
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CROSS
XIAOYU WANG     YUTIAN WANG
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
Our project aims to explore how border functions as key element that embraces two contradicted territories into one united entity rather than separates them. By introducing an undulated line that dramatically dances in-between the two countries, a continuously weaving underground wall ties a series of collectively shared open pools and solid individual rooms with round shape geometry which is inherited from the mechanism of traditional Korean bathhouse typology Jimjilbang. By inviting natural sunlight and topographical landscape from above-ground to underground, this form creates multiple crossing-border interstitial conditions that mutually encourages people from both North and South Korea to interact physically. 

RUNNER-UP
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PRIMITIVE FIELD
YEONMOON KIM    CHOONGHYO LEE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES
North and South. Communism and Democracy. Socialism and Capitalism. Korea has been existing within pairs of opposite features since the devision. The "Primitive Field" is about this existing condition of Korea itself. On the ground, physical materialization of the "demarcation line" will symbolize the reality of the Korean division. As approaching underground by entering into the border itself, the architecture rather dematerialize its physical presence in order to reinforce the bathhouse's social activity within the primitive field condition. The "Primitive Field" is the coexistence of over and underground and materialized and dematerialized.

RUNNER-UP
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THIS LOFTY SKY
VUK FILIPIC    ANNA MURYNKA
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA
The extreme tension of the DMZ paradoxically reinforces an intense peace. With a similar intention, this project proposes to erase interpersonal conflict through a process of introspection. Guests of the bathhouse share in the equality of solitude and inner reflection, regardless of their origin or state of existence in the external world. Suspended glass vessels lower individual bathers into a vast subterranean dome, treating them to a steam, hot soak, and paralyzing ice dip in the process. A mass spectacle of simultaneous personal isolation unfolds, mirroring the human condition beyond the bathhouse.

RUNNER-UP

WATER WHIRL
[ SPECTACLE: Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism ]     PHILIP VANDERMEY     JESSIE ANDJELIC     DAVID VERA
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA
The addition of a bathhouse introduces leisure activities within the militarized buffer zone and ecological sanctuary of the DMZ. Water Whirl takes two existing spatial conditions - firstly the void of the DMZ, a space across which transgressions, propaganda, posturing and political relations are constantly played out, and, secondly, the highly charged negotiation spaces within the blue meeting houses in the JSA / Panmunjom - and reinterprets them into an architectural machine that uses playful spatial devices towards productive interaction and reconciliation. Using the expanded functions of a large Jimjilbang enables the programmatic exuberance to provide variety and critical mass.

RUNNER-UP
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HYPOTENUSE THERMAE
ZHE PENG​
BEIJING, CHINA
Hypotenuse thermae proposes a radical responds to the paradoxical DMZ. It creates a world of autonomy, in order to ease and accelerate the confrontation at the same time, to show a true reflection of the local context. The thermae is an exotic, consisted of traditional functions of a Roman baths and other modern social activities. All elements blended together in a complete artificial underground cave, just like the mystery vault of ancient ruins depicted by Piranesi. It is an enclave of silence, a heterotopia full of roars, an enormous mat for prayers, a palace of policed orgy. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS

TERRA COGNITAE

OLIVIA IMANUELA     RICHO WIRAWAN     STEPHANY TANDIAN    
​FRANCISKUS RAYMOND HALIM

Our proposal addresses a non-politically neutral space in a midst of normatively segregated zone. Dividing Korea peninsula, ‘a line’ exists and demarcates the two countries in contrast. On the other hand, simultaneously, this ‘line’ does not physically exist. This terra incognita, or unexplored ‘area’ of the ‘line’, asserts to be defined spatially instead of positioning ourselves politically, neither to meld the two nor to emphasize the segregation, our design offers a non-political sovereign space. This sovereign or neutral space is derived from children who politically are neutral and innocent. Form wise, that intention is expressed through ‘unseen playfulness’ by combining colorful geometrical shapes which intersect the ‘interrupted line’ in ‘underground zig zag’. The neutrality is enforced through series of playful programs to obviate tension

THE MAZE

NERI D'ALESSANDRO     JACOPO LEONI     GIACOMO NAVA    
​GIACOMO RIZZI

The Maze is an answer to both a social and physical context: a path rather than a place and the symbol of uncertainty. The underground absence of any geographical reference builds an experience based on the act of meeting. The path starts from three entrances that mislead the dualism of the border and continues underground through a domed maze hosting bath facilities. The labyrinth causes everybody to loose their sense of belonging until they meet in the central pool. Bared of origins, visitors here experience a new form of comparison reflecting through the sky, the pool and into the others.

OVERHEAR THE OTHER SIDE

JUNGHUN PARK

People from both sides only hear distorted information by the media. They try to appeal how better countries they are. These informations are propaganda and do not reflect daily lives. In this context, people wonder daily lives of each side. For example, people from North try to get South Korea soap operas illegally and TV shows about North Korea defectors are broadcast in South Korea by popular demand. People taking baths are relaxed enough to talk about daily lives. If they get to overhear everyday conversation, not propaganda, they would get to know each
other in a very real way.

SELF PORTRAIT

JINSEON NOH     SEONGCHUL YU     KIHUN PARK

To Koreans, DMZ is the land of sorrow that has the wound of separation. This surface border is a bandage hiding the wound(the military demarcation line). This bandage must be peeled off from Korean peninsula to cure the wound. Just like skin needs to breathe to heal up, exposed underground will be the space of healing wounded Koreans. In this bathhouse, North and South Koreans will face each other, and it eventually means to reflect themselves : the self portrait. Through underground-bath experience, visitors will have opportunity to think about the separation and how Koreans feel about their tragic situation.

BODYYARD

IOANNIS KARRAS

While border lines fortify the limits of state’s power on a community, human body (as space) occurs as the utopian land (Le Corps utopique); as ground zero of the imaginary. BodyYard suggests an open ‘’engraved’’ topography which shapes the whole bath time experience into an unprecedented ritual of desire; a perpetual transcendence from sovereignty zone to comfort zone. The ‘’Propaganda Boiler’’ establishes the leisure fact and by hosting the follow drone-shower heads, provides each user with his desired water variations. (cold, hot, steam etc.) BodyYard attempts to elaborate anew the legend of DMZ as a Post-Arcadian territory, shifting from ‘’governing on body’’ to ‘’body governing’’.

THE EPHEMERAL DIVIDE

ZIHAO WEI     NILOJAN JEGATHEESWARAN
​

The Ephemeral Divide questions the legitimacy of observing border as just lines intending to create a dialogue with the DMZ, rather than ignoring it. Visitors circulate five concentric rings planned in the typical programmatic procession of a jjimijilbang, each ring divided by a singular wall extruded from the border. While visitors can pass through, using a method of fluctuating water within this border-line wall, a division of circulation and programs occurs throughout the course of the day. This separation and unification of two sides is meant to illustrate hope for two nations that are meant to be realized as one. 

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WHITE FLAG

SONYA FALKOVSKAIA     SUNG LIM
​

WHITE FLAG defies borders and politics - instead, it embodies the hope for peace. With this proposal we question what a border is in the DMZ. A line that divides two nations is thought of as rigid and permanent. Instead, we propose a border of steam, a border that simultaneously is there and is not there. A monolithic white flag motif with no volume, constantly changing like a flag in the wind. More users of the bathhouse increase the intensity of the flag, showing that it is the people who create the desire for peace rather than the state.
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CALM BORDER

CHRISTOPHER PONGRAC

Calm Border seeks to highlight the discomfort that exists within the demilitarized zone along the North and South Korean border, and to use architecture to suspend that experience, evoking feelings of peace, liberation and calm. The bathhouse is a vessel for providing tranquil and dignified interactions, with space designed for both public and private conversation, cross-cultural exchange, development of empathy and understanding, and for reuniting friends and family. This can be achieved by reducing complexities of the geopolitical identity of its visitors down to commonalities such as the bare human body, and the pleasurable effects of water in its many states on the human psyche. 

TRENCH

JAEBONG JEON     KEUNYOUNG LIM

The bath is located along the borderline between two countries, and visually blocked by a translucent screen. People from two nations sit at 2m distance from one another sharing same water, steam and air, but they cannot see each other. This ironical situation stimulates their attention for others over the screen because people feel a greater curiosity when they have a limited view, rather than a clear visibility. After unification, the bath still will be there and operate normally, serving as a monument. The screen which runs across the unified Korean Peninsula will commemorate our joys and even grief. 

BATHHOUSING

YIDING, IDEA LIU     YUNDONG, PATRICK YANG     JIN-YU, GEORGE GUU

The project occupies the whole site and tends to occupy the entire DMZ. It is not just a bath house, but a shelter and housing for people from both sides of the border. The thick roof provides protection from military assault and thus nothing is extruded out from the ground. People are all equal in this place, regardless of their backgrounds, races and ideologies. Despite of a variety of oculi and sunken grounds of different privacy, the courtyards that originate from traditional local architecture are all connected to activate collective living that is rare in modern cities.

DIRECTOR'S CHOICE

UNRESOLVED LINE

ZHENGYAN JIN     WEIMING SHI     YUJIE WANG     YANG YUE​

In response to the consistent political tension between two nations, we conceive architecture as symbolic means to both intensify and resolve such tension. By having a series of chronological assigned vertical pipelines that connect to the underground mechanical system dotting along the demarcation line of DMZ zone, the project becomes an effort to both reconnect people to the geopolitical history and unify them in the realm of light, water, and fog. More importantly, the architecture has to grow along with such political tension, and therefore, remains as an unfinished project. 
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LEISURE PLANT:
REUNIFICATION THROUGH SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE

CHRISTIAN GOLDEN     AARON POWERS

88.5 percent of North Korea’s energy is sourced came from coal, oil, petroleum, and natural gas. While the country’s electricity production is split between hydro and thermal resources, North Korea has begun to wean itself off fossil fuels to rely on hydroelectric power. This comes at the expense of the environment, regional ecologies, and labor rights. Paektusan Hero Youth Power Station No. 3, completed prematurely on April 23, 2016, and as a result of poor construction the newest power station is leaking. Subsequently, Kim Jong-un has summoned the mobilization of lay-citizens to volunteer free labor to combat the leaking - dubbed the “70-day battle." Instead of free labor, the citizens should be called upon for free leisure. Leisure which generates social energy, while simultaneously generating electricity. Shared at the border of South Korea along the 38th parallel, the new leisure-energy center incubates diplomatically as social condenser and infrastructural hub. Ultimately reuniting the divided sides through shared conversation, shared infrastructural necessity, and shared power. 

KINTSUGI EFFECT

BLANCA VELILLA     CARLOS MARISTANY     JAVIER MIRANDA

Korea talk about division, broken hearts an losses due to the war. Kintsugi philosophy advocates the crack make an object more beautiful giving the value of the pass of time. Baths in the DMZ must be the link between this two pieces, proposing an introspective trip of physical and mental purification in touch with natural environment. The crack is the incarnation of human’s resilience. Capable of recovering from any situation despite of the fact that it is traumatic, always seems to get mend in the same way as the Kintsugi philosophy, the fingerprint that remains makes it stronger.
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BEETLE BOUNDS

MARTA PIASECZYNSKA     RANGEL KARAIVANOV

BEETLE BOUNDS explores the different topologies of borders, the limes and the terminal, by playing with the sequencing and overlapping of volumes, pathways and inaccessible landscapes. The limes as the classical border of lines and territories, with their clear geo-coordinate associations. The terminal as the contemporary border of stacked and folded layers of accessibility, with it's ambiguous relationships between architecture and occupant. Inside and underground is where one loses any ability to understand it's position in relation to the line, where territory and land loses it's power.

​THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

HENRY D'ATH

North and South Korea have become estranged from one another. Either side no longer knows or understands people from the other. Still today they resort to yelling messages of misinformation through loudspeakers lining the border. This project aims to explore the use of audio propaganda as a means to lessen the disparity between either side. The design itself is a propaganda machine of concrete and steel with the intent to align the perspectives of people who have fallen distant from each other. 

​ADJACENT DIVERGENT

SARAH WONG     HOSING IP     CAMELLIA WONG     HORTA FU

Peaceful reunifying Korea is challenging as both of the powers believed that they are more superior over another. As an underground bath locating at the neutral zone between two powers of hostility, it should act as a mediator between the conflicting ideologies. Meanwhile, the nature of bath is multidimensional, it is an experience of space appreciation and body sensation, which could drive a man to interpret the atmospheric meaning in both visual and spiritual ways. A bath that themed with the social-historical condition of two Koreas would be legitimate for visitor to further understand the visible matters and excel their view towards the country unification significant. 

THE GREAT OASIS: ZIP-RESTITCH
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DANIEL TIONG WEI WEN

North South Korea coexist on a border line for decades and the line has been abandoned due to political tension between both countries, dividing the people and families from each other. By rethinking the definition of ‘wall / border’, the idea is to unzip the border wall line into a sunken bath space integrated with existing ecological systems; creating a submerged ‘wall / border’ typology as the third space. The sunken bath is designed as an independent city acting as a shared platform for both parties to utilize its facilities. Steams from geothermal bath plays an important role as a environment metaphor to blurred the identity of the users and they are free to swim along baths and oasis. The city is a mix of various bath system and contain hidden paths which facilitate the 'migrating' users to safety. In the decades down the road, this proposal is set along the borders acting as connecting river for both countries and by hope, transforming the political tension war zone into an open ecological space for the people’s welfare.

ON STAYING "MINOR"

YUNUS AN     HÜSEYIN FURKAN BALCI

Architectural act tends to engage in the world of macro-scale segmentations and reproduce ever-existing definitions of the world in the fragile but complex milieus of life. border, are simple and clear things, collections of definitive geometries on projected surfaces; for the people think of life in the medium of colorfully segmented maps. The problem is, answering without a discursive machine that transforms all the complexities into uniform substances. Such an act would leave the world at the hands of limiting arrangements of macro-scale postulates resulting with the. Bathing as a tool to program the DMZ, may be considered as a strongly deviated field of possibilities. being drastically separated from these “actual” zones of bathing, program itself has to invent a new formation, a new concept regarding “bathing space”. 

SILVER LINE_ING

SOOHYOUN NAM     GAHYEON CHOI     YUNSUNG CHO     HYEJIN LEE

DMZ acts as a blurred boundary than a clear-cut line, making countries’ separation vague and unclear, yet adds more tension, since the demarcation is not visible. The architecture to be built into the territory should record the present history, not the future or past. Carving a line parallel to the DML in the area, and a trace is made to remember the present and move onto better future. Adopting existing tunnel construction technique TBM(TUNNEL BORING MACHINE), the underground space formed through series of tunnels are flexible and feasible. 
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KOREAN DAM

SIRA TEMJAI     JANEJIRA HU

It has always been a challenge to reduce and reconcile the tensions on the borders between two countries. In our view, it’s the direct confrontation between borders that sparks collisions from both sides. Therefore, we seek to submit a design that can be shared between two countries to receive mutual benefits under existing conflicts. The proposal is an underground bathhouse that simultaneously serves as a water reservoir, creating an exchange between the shared frontiers at the same time. Created are the circulation of water exchange system that can supply to the agricultural areas above ground of which can be expanded indefinitely, unbounded to the limitations of this particular site. 


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