Joel Sanders Architect

219 Gardens is a private enclave that combines the best aspects of urban and country living. Taking advantage of the site’s central location, a walled community is organized around linear courtyards for quiet strolling and contemplation. Following the natural contours of the sloping site, four slender residential bars are placed on each of the terraces, oriented to take advantage of north/south sunlight. The masonry wall that defines the perimeter of traditional Korean palaces is re-conceived of as a retail buffer that screens out the sights and sounds of the urban foreground and creates “borrowed views” of the mountains beyond. The stacked massing creates a pattern of sky-garden voids providing uninterrupted view corridors from one end of the site to the other. Rather than create one rarely used facility, our scheme distributes the communal amenities into four two-story Club Courts at the base of each housing block. These facilities are organized around a landscaped courtyard that is connected by the Diagonal, a glazed arcade connecting the southeast Main Gate to the northwest retail atrium.

Unlike typical high-rises densely packed with anonymous apartments, 219 Gardens treats each home as a legible building block stacked in various combinations. The 3 villa types – penthouse, sky terrace, and meadow – possess south/north facing exposures and generous private gardens. This is accomplished by the building’s stepped profile, two-story sky garden voids, and ground-level sunken yards. 219 Gardens features porous indoor/outdoor living spaces that combine natural and man-made materials. At the scale of the unit, floor plans feature operable window walls allowing spaces to flow from inside out to the landscaped sky-gardens.