A hill a mountain or a building? That’s the question Dominique Perrault asked himself when designing the Ewha Campus Complex. This isn’t just any campus. It’s the Ewha Campus Complex in Seoul South Korea. Home to Ewha Womans University founded in 1886 by American missionary Mary F Scranton. It’s the world’s largest female educational institute. Its history spans architectural styles from 19th-century Gothic to brutalist. But the Ewha Campus Complex ECC is something entirely new.
Perrault’s ECC is a vegetation-covered hill. A deep wide cleft splits it. It’s like a geological fault. It’s a landscape for movement a place for spontaneous activities. Students even compare the chasm at the center to Moses parting the Red Sea. Perrault calls it a spatial balance between landscape and architecture.
The ECC is vast. It houses 20000 students. It includes teaching sports leisure and business facilities. The entrance is at a different angle to the main campus entrance. You walk through a shopping area. Then you climb the sloped landscape. You relax in the natural greenery. The designers surprisingly didn’t include benches. Perhaps that’s a detail for the future.
The glass facade leads you to a remarkable void a 25m by 250m chasm. It’s a long ramp sloping down. It’s lined with glass walls. At the end it turns into large stone steps. These steps form an outdoor amphitheater. Ten entrances are positioned on different levels. This is Perrault’s Hidden Valley of Ewha.
The curtain walls let in daylight and some natural ventilation. Mirrored steel fins resist high wind stress. They’re a technological feat a collaboration with Samsung. They transform structural elements into a visual experience. Inside though the mirrors can be visually disturbing. They blur and narrow the outward view.
From inside the ECC you see the juxtaposition of old and new architecture. A 19th-century Gothic brick building is half-buried in the roofscape. It’s a surreal sight. There’s also a sculpture garden. It’s next to the only elevator connecting the building to the roof.
The interior is linear pragmatic and functional. Staircases and corridors connect the floors. There’s a library conference rooms a fitness center a movie theater and a performance art center. There are spaces for reading and coffee. Walls are glass letting light penetrate deep into the building. The materials and colors are sober almost absent. The furniture is designed for learning through lounging. Public activity spaces and auditoria are at both ends.
While Perrault aimed for balance between landscape and architecture there’s a disconnect. Despite the light in the underground space there is limited visual connection between exterior and interior. The slanted roof and mirrored fins distort the interior perspective. The spatial quality of the void is best experienced from the outside.
Yet the ECC brings a dynamic balance to its site. It introduces urban activities into the university setting. Students no longer need to leave campus for other things. The ECC maintains a city feel on campus. This includes fitness cafes and workshops. The ECC’s location is essential. It has shaped the boundary between campus and city with grace. The Ewha Campus Complex isn’t just a building. It’s an experience. A testament to innovative design and a perfect blend of nature and architecture.