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“With aramid,” Mayne says, “we were free to develop our own language that wasn’t limited to the shape of the material.” Used as an added layer in the composite mix to strengthen the glass fiber-reinforced polymer, it allowed the architects to achieve a graceful organic form with minimal connections to the building. Kolon uses it in applications such as bulletproof helmets. The solution was aramid, a material that has five times the tensile strength of iron. “One of the client’s mandates was for the panels to look as good from the inside as they did from the outside,” Yi says. “We treated the façade as a jacket,” says principal Eui-Sung Yi.īut this part of South Korea has high winds and dramatic annual temperature swings, and the client insisted that the brise-soleil panels have as few connection points as possible, so as not to mar the view. Morphosis employed a brise-soleil system of exterior polymer panels that work with the stretchers inside in a tiered shading strategy-akin to the layers in the high-performance sportswear that often uses Kolon’s products. The project uses 10 different Kolon fabrics, both inside and outside the building. The “stretchers,” as the firm calls the fabric pieces, can also be swapped out, making them a rotating product showcase as well as a shading system. By creating 400 diamond-shaped liner panels using 8-meter-long swatches of Kolon fabrics in varying degrees of thickness and opacity, and placing them in vertical layers through the 30-meter-tall atrium, Morphosis was able to shade and diffuse the strong western sunlight, add light as needed with embedded LEDs, and help control acoustics in the cavernous space. The building is split between back-office research wings-which make up 85 percent of the floor plan-and the public-facing atrium, which connects the research wings and acts as the building’s front door.
So when the client asked for a design that brought in maximum sunlight while reducing solar gain, it didn’t take long for both sides to realize that the solution was already in hand. “The airbag in your car probably comes from them,” says Morphosis founding principal Thom Mayne, FAIA. While Kolon produces a wide variety of products, it is perhaps best known for cutting-edge textiles that go into everything from sports gear to automobiles. Designed by Morphosis for Kolon Industries, one of South Korea’s largest manufacturers, the research-and-development facility is also a showcase for using high-performance fabrics in architecture-in this case, fabrics made by Kolon itself. Morphosis crafted a layered façade-shading strategy for a new research and development hub, using the client’s own products.Īt over 820,000 square feet, the Kolon One & Only Tower is more than just a centerpiece of a new high-tech hub outside Seoul.
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