daecheong · the open hall
Projects
Fourteen houses since 2019 — each one a pine frame cut to lock without nails, wrapped in a certified passive envelope.
The studio has completed fourteen houses since 2019. Four are documented here in the depth we wish more architects allowed themselves: with the airtightness numbers, the joinery drawings, and the mistakes. All fourteen share one rule — the timber frame is cut to lock without nails, following the approach, and the envelope is measured, not assumed.
Cheongun Passive House
Cheongun-ri · completed March 2025 · 143 m²
Our first certified build and still the clearest statement of the method. A three-bay geumgang pine frame surrounds a ten-metre madang, with the daecheong — the open central hall — glazed on both faces so it works as a sunspace in January and a wind tunnel in August. The blower door closed at 0.34 air changes per hour; annual heating demand was measured across its first winter at 11.8 kWh/m²a. The owners report lighting the backup heater four times all season, mostly, they admit, out of nostalgia.
Two-Madang House
Baeksan · completed October 2024 · 188 m²
A household of seven — three generations — under one continuous roofline. Rather than stack the family, we split the plan into two courtyards: a loud madang ringed by kitchen, workroom, and the grandmother's daecheong, and a quiet one holding the studies and bedrooms. The two zones balance ventilation loads against each other; the heat-recovery core sits in the wall between them, four metres of duct from either courtyard's rooms.
Dumun Valley Annex
Dumun Valley · completed January 2026 · 96 m²
A retrofit, and the project that taught us the most. A 1931 frame — sound pine, brutal drafts — was lifted whole on jacks, its stone plinths releveled, its failed joints re-cut, and the entire frame re-seated inside a new wood-fibre envelope. Not one original beam was replaced. Measured heating demand fell from an estimated 210 kWh/m²a to 19.3. The annex misses full certification by the width of a 1931 doorway we refused to move.
Saeorum Twin Frames
Saeorum ridge · completed June 2025 · 2 × 74 m²
Two small houses for two sisters, cut as a single joinery package to halve the carpentry time. Every post, beam, and jangbu tenon exists twice; the frames went up in eleven days with a crew of four. The pair shares a ground-source loop but nothing else — the sisters were clear on that point. Both houses closed under 0.4 ACH on the first blower-door attempt, which the site carpenter celebrated by refusing to look surprised.