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Living with the elements: the Korean house; In Korea, the relationship between climate, culture and building generates a distinctive domestic architecture that works with, rather than against, the elements and has wider lessons for building and living in harmony with nature

Architectural Review, The, Sept, 2004 by Peter Blundell Jones

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1 Archaeological remains showing traces of underfloor heating canals predate the modern era, and there was widespread dissemination of the practice between the fourth century and the seventh century. See Nam-Ung Kim, Stehendes und liegendes Feuer, PhD thesis at the University of Darmstadt, 1994.

2 In her famous autobiography Daughter of a Samurai, Etsu Sugimoto describes the ordeal of lessons as a child in unheated rooms, and being forbidden to fidget as this was considered undignified.

3 The Japanese tatamimat module measures out rooms in terms of potential bed spaces, but this does not apply in Korea.

4 These days racks and shoehorns are usually provided.

5 In Sugimoto's book (see note 2), far more events at the outer gate than at the inner are reported. The roughly equivalent status of the two thresholds in north China is also made clear by Charles Stafford in Separation and Reunion in China, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Stafford's main thesis is that separations and reunions, not only between people but also with deities and ancestors, are especially stressed in Chinese culture.

This article was written after a lecture visit in 2003 at the generous invitations of Professor Kim Chung-Jae of Kyunpook National University Daegu and Dr Alfred Bong Hwangbo of the Seoul National University of Technology. The author is also grateful to Professor Nam-Ung Kim for providing a copy of his German-language thesis Stehendes und liegendes Feuer (Standing and Lying Fire) and for allowing reproduction of his drawings. The house plans and sections are from the research report on the residential site of the Moon clan at Root Village, Nam-pyung, published by Dal-Sung Gun, Daegu City.

All photographs are by Peter Blundell Jones, except nos 3 and 8 by Dr Alfred Bong Hwangbo No 1 (Katsura Place) was published in Tetsuro Yoshida, The Japanese House and Garden, Pall Mall, London 1965, p47.