Despite its strong association with function, the house is inherently a medium for self-expression. It can be anything from a tiny glimpse to a comprehensive summation of how one chooses to live. It is always, in some way, an industriously contrived portrait of the self. Thus questions abounded when we came across this peculiar single-family dwelling called the Lollipop House in Giheung-Gu, Korea, spotted today on Designboom. Standing like a warped, oversized peppermint amidst a sea of neutral colors and conventional suburban homes, the Lollipop House is a strong statement of individuality, both inside and out. More after the jump.

Architect Moon Hoon’s latest work is most arresting in its use of pink and white candystripes, which swirl hypnotically along the pivoting angles of the house’s sheath-like exterior. The unusual façade works both to reveal and conceal the equally strange interior configuration, effectively hiding the seven-stories that wrap around the central atrium while hinting at the wildly spiraling form within. Each floor opens into a unique space illuminated by a few strategically placed windows as well as the light flooding in from the central void.

The Lollipop House thus presents an interesting relationship to exterior ornamentation, standing apart from the deliberately hermetic exteriors of modernist homes, as exaggerated in many contemporary Japanese designs, while also eschewing the manicured, fabricated facades of more traditional designs, which seek to project a particular falsified image through symmetrical window arrangements and the like. The distorted peppermint design both hints and obscures, representing an agglomeration of space that is both playful and thoughtful, like an eccentrically dressed stranger you would like to get to know.

[All images via Designboom]

by Kelly Chan

posted in New Projects

tagged Architecture, candy, design, exterior, Korea, Moon Hoon

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