Cafe Mo’Better Blues / modo architect office

© Yum Seung Hoon

Architects: modo architect office
Location: Seoul, Korea
Project Year: 2009
Project Area: 276.46 sqm (GFA)
Photographs: Yum Seung Hoon

Cafe Mo’Better Blues is located in a quite place behind the busy commercial area in Daehak-ro. Its original building was a 12-year old one-story cafe. The client wanted a new building to have scenery and memory of the old cafe. In that situation, we tried to plan the building as a device to recall shabby and old rural scenery in the city.

Situation

To secure enough space, the area of stairs to connect each floors had to be minimized. Therefore the stairs to connect the 1st and 2nd floors had a cantilever structure and the stairs to connect from the 2nd floor to the 5th floor were planned to have 75cm-wide width. Windows in various sizes that show outside views were installed to reslove narrowness of the space.

© Yum Seung Hoon

Materials for the outer wall were exposed concrete and mortar. With new interpretation of cement mortar, we intended to express scenery of the old cafe.

Section

Terraces were arranged in different locations on each floor. They are another device to recall old scenery. Plants and trees on those green terraces in the rear of the 1st floor, front of the 2nd floor, rear and right side of the 3rd floor, front of the 4th floor and the yard of the 5th floor will decorate the whole building and hold traces of times.

© Yum Seung Hoon

Especially the terrace in the rear of the 3rd floor was constructed in a cantilever structure to express the non-rectangular shape of the site.