ABOUT P : A
project /n/ a collaborative enterprise:
project /v/ to forecast or extend:
Belying its seemingly generic status, the word ‘project’ has two important definitions: As a noun it describes a collaborative enterprise, an umbrella under which shared goals converge into concrete realization. It implies that ideas have been tested along the way and that the enriched communication between participants has created a result where the sum is much greater than its parts.
As a verb, ‘project’ is an emboldened look into the future. But its very nature of forecasting is based on ‘intelligent risk,’ a careful analysis of the past and present to generate the future. Therefore, to project is one of the greatest tasks of the architect in that it is literally drawing the detailed blueprints for a situation that has yet to materialize.
Project : Architecture therefore is the combination of the noun and verb that frames the production of architecture. As a kind of ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ it is a reductive and generalist name containing highly specific agendas that center around the efficacy of architecture. Our working methods are based on integrating research, systems, materials, and experience into catalysts for positive change. By projecting precise questions tailored to the task at hand we are able to converge diverse criteria and constituents around democratically shared objectives. And like the democratic process, we invite debate and discourse along the way as a key means to discover new and better paths.
Recognizing the rich complexity of today’s social, economic, and historical conditions, we work across the diverse media of built works, research, exhibitions, research, computation, theoretical proposals, and text: all with the end goal of elevating architecture’s role as one of the most effective forms of cultural production.
John Hong AIA, LEED AP is an architect and professor at Seoul National University and the director of Project : Architecture. His work bridges the scales of architecture and urbanism and converges the mediums of drawings, material, theory, and computation. His work has been exhibited at international venues including at the 2014 and 2016 Venice Biennales as well as published in major media such as Architectural Record, Metropolis Magazine, The New Yorker, and Space Magazine. His built projects were awarded 17 American Institute of Architecture (AIA) awards, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, the Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League NY, and a Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Award. His most notable writings include the books, Convergent Flux: Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Korea, (2012) and Fragments of a New Housing Language: Contemporary Urban Housing in Korea (2016). He was Associate Professor in Practice at the Harvard GSD (2007-14) and has held visiting professorships at other major universities including the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Master’s in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor’s in Science in Architecture with Honors from the University of Virginia.
존홍은 건축가이며 서울대학교 건축학과 교수이자 프로젝트 아키텍처(Project : Architecture)의 디렉터이다. 그의 작업은 건축과 도시학 간의 가교 역할을 하며, 도면, 소재, 이론 및 계산이라는 매체를 한 데 모은다. 존홍의 작업은 Architectural Record, Metropolis Magazine, The New Yorker, 및 Space Magazine을 비롯한 주요 언론매체에서 다루어졌을 뿐만 아니라, 2014년과 2016년 베니스 비엔날레(Venice Biennale) 등의 국제 행사에도 전시되었다. 미국건축가협회(American Institute of Architecture)에서 수여하는 AIA Awards를 17회 수상한 바 있으며, 그 외에도 Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard 상, Architectural League NY에서 the Emerging Voices Award 및 Holcim 재단에서 Sustainable Construction Award 등을 수상했다. 가장 주목할 만한 저서로는 『융합하는 흐름: 한국의 현대건축과 도시학』(Convergent Flux: Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Korea, 2012) 및 『새로운 주거방식의 조각들: 한국 현대사회의 도시주거』 (Fragments of a New Housing Language: Contemporary Urban Housing in Korea, 2016)이 있다. 하버드 GSD (Harvard Graduate School of Design)에서 부교수(2007~14)를 역임했고, 펜실베니아 대학을 비롯해 주요 대학에서 객원교수로 활동했다. 하버드 GSD에서 건축학 석사를 취득했고, 버지니아 대학에서 건축학 학사를 취득했다.
