19. The Law of Opposites
“Oh. I like that.”
Assistant Manager Soomin reacted right away when she saw the Daije Choco flavor and Geonshin asked happily.
“This tastes incredible, right? I like this snack, too. Do you also like the other companies’ products that copied this? Those have strawberry flavor and cream flavor too.”
“No. I’ve heard some people say the other ones taste better, but for some reason I never end up buying them.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because the chocolate coated one that came out first was Daije Choco flavor? I just keep buying that one.”
“Yes, that’s right. I was like that too. When I thought about why, it’s probably because Assistant Manager Sujin and I recognized Daije Choco flavor as the leader among chocolate coated snacks. You develop a kind of loyalty to the first one you ate and liked.”
“Oh. That might be true! Instinctively, I’m like, yeah, this is the real one. I do eat it thinking something like that.”
“Haha. We’re on the same wavelength. Alright, then at this point, what do you think is the thing that is like this Daije Choco flavor?”
“Like it? Um, I’m not sure.”
Geonshin paused briefly, then continued.
“It’s Mirim Architecture.”
“…”
“Uh… Mirim Architecture?”
Assistant Manager Soomin tilted her head for a moment, then understood.
“Ah. You mean in the sense that they got there first…!”
“So that’s what all the snack talk was about… Gwangseong University is the consumer, and Mirim is that snack.”
Director Yoo-uk, who had been sitting there without much thought, realized the meaning hidden in the random snack talk, and began to watch with curious eyes.
“Then. Are you saying we become the knockoff? That no matter what we do, it’s useless?”
Team Leader Mo had grasped Geonshin’s intention just as quickly. Approaching it through the market logic of the snack industry was odd, but architecture was also clearly a market that moved on capital. The relationship between the client who chooses and them, who must sell, did not seem all that different from Geonshin’s logic in the broad sense.
But Team Leader Mo, unlike before, had no intention of letting it slide. This was about Division 7’s survival.
“What we’re doing right now isn’t selling snacks, it’s a design competition, Na Geonshin. Can you compare it to a snack that can be replaced with any other snack anytime, a snack that costs 500 won or 1,000 won? And even if you’re right, what’s the point of pointing that out here. Are you trying to say what we’re doing has no meaning?”
This was exactly the problem Geonshin had identified in Team Leader Mo’s idea. That it was no different from the Mirim Architecture sports center Geonshin had seen inside the folder.
Of course, the lower-level idea and the cleaner, simpler mass made Team Leader Mo’s plan far superior, but even if it was a better plan, if the concept was similar, the president would obviously pick the son-in-law’s result.
First, they make that side the winner, and after they take whatever parts they like from the other side’s concept, even if people talk later, they can just say, so what, and push through.
In the end, Team Leader Mo’s plan, which resembled the sports center that would already be built, was a game they could never win, no matter how much they submitted it.
“The plan Mirim Architecture presented to Gwangseong University will probably be almost identical to Team Leader Mo’s idea. Because if you follow the design brief they presented, it’s hard for anything beyond this kind of plan to come out. This design brief is based on their own plan. So this may be a trap. So that no plan beyond exactly this can come out.”
“A plan beyond this can’t come out? Mirim would have already submitted a plan like this?”
Team Leader Mo, too, had felt something uneasy about the plan that naturally unfolded when you only looked at the design brief. Like you were following a predetermined road.
But…
“Even if the design brief is a trap, if we don’t follow it, we get points deducted. We can’t just ignore it.”
“That’s right. We’re already short, and if we lose even a little from deductions…”
But Geonshin understood the essence of this project. The only way to respond to Mirim Architecture, which had already designed the wrong architecture. They had to show, with Division 7’s plan, that the opponent’s plan was wrong.
No one would believe him if he said it was something that would happen in the future, but Geonshin knew the fate of the Daije Choco flavor he had shown at the start very well.
Once Daije Choco flavor gained popularity and became the trend, similar snacks sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Later, it got to the point where if it was a snack at all, it felt like you had to coat it in chocolate, and people enjoyed that sweet taste.
But what ended that fierce competition was not any sweet taste, like strawberry or cream.
The true winner was a diet snack that was dry, not sweet, and honestly, even the taste was vague.
The appearance of low-calorie diet snacks instantly turned chocolate coated snacks into “calorie bombs that only make you gain weight and rot your teeth,” into bad foods.
Diet snacks publicly exposed Daije Choco flavor’s fatal weakness to the world. After that, diet snacks became a must have item in the bags of women and gym goers.
“If Mirim Architecture is Daije Choco flavor, then our Yeongjo Architecture has to crush them with diet snacks. That is the Law of Opposites.”
“Inside a strength, there is definitely a weakness. For us too, there is definitely a chance to turn the tables. We have to grasp Mirim Architecture’s core and propose the opposite of it to Gwangseong University. I’m saying we shouldn’t try to be better than Mirim’s plan, we should appeal by making something completely different. Then Mirim’s plan will reveal its fatal weaknesses and flaws.”
“The opposite, huh. So that’s why you called it the Law of Opposites.”
At Geonshin’s words, the focus in the meeting room rose.
In the end, what mattered was how they would make it different. The design brief clearly had fixed rules for the competition and the client’s demands.
Here, Geonshin picked out Mirim Architecture’s mistake.
What made Mirim Architecture fall into its own trap was its misunderstanding about what a landmark was.
“What misunderstanding is there about a landmark. It just needs to be flashy, easy to see, and hold symbolic meaning.”
At Director Yoo uk’s words, Geonshin thought, as expected. The formula “easy to see equals symbolism equals landmark” was natural for architects of that time.
But the landmark Gwangseong University should pursue, as Geonshin saw it through Dominique Perrault’s eyes, was different.
It was the “emptied” space he showed through the vast garden of the French National Library.
Rather than adding a massive sports center to an already packed campus, when you instead empty it out and remove the high wall, people gather there, drink coffee, share conversation, and sometimes it becomes a meeting place to see someone.
When all of those actions are held there, that place, too, can become another landmark.
“A meeting place…”
“Empty it out instead.”
At Geonshin’s thinking, the meeting room shifted into an atmosphere of agreement. But Team Leader Mo’s question could not disappear.
“Then you’re saying that the very idea of building a sports center on this site was an error from the start?”
As expected of Team Leader Mo Seungjin, quick to understand.
“Yes. If Gwangseong University truly wanted to become the city’s new landmark, they should not build a massive sports facility. It’s a bad move that only pushes the packed campus and city into even more saturation.”
At Geonshin’s words, Assistant Manager Soomin, who had questions, said,
“Geonshin. But this was commissioned as a sports center design competition. You can’t exactly say, ‘You must not build a sports center,’ can you? The client clearly asked for it to replace a narrow athletic field that isn’t used. If you build a sports center, the athletic field has to disappear.”
“So the idea I came up with is a plan that builds the sports center, but keeps the athletic field as it is.”
“Huh? Does that even make sense?”
“Na Geonshin. What are you talking about?”
Assistant Manager Soomin and Director Yoo-uk reacted as if they could not understand. But Geonshin smiled as if he expected it, and said,
“We build the sports center underground, beneath the athletic field.”
Including Director Yoo-uk, the eyes of the team members in the meeting went wide.
“Underground? You keep the field and build it under that?”
“…! Building it underground. I’ve never even thought of that idea.”
Director Yoo-uk and Assistant Manager Soomin spoke in shock, startled. It felt like getting hit in the back of the head, like they were watching a twist movie.
He said the competition itself was wrong, he spoke as if he had seen Mirim’s plan, and he wasn’t someone they had known for long either, just a normal college student part timer for the first two, three weeks.
And now, ever since he took on the KAIST project, he was showing such outstanding skill, like he had become a completely different person.
“What on earth happened to this guy?”
Team Leader Mo tried not to show it, but he, too, could not help being surprised again by Geonshin’s idea.
Geonshin’s presentation began again with a story that pulled people in.
With the Daije chocolate story, he won Assistant Manager Soomin’s agreement, then he defined Mirim and Yeongjo’s relationship as leader and knockoff.
And then, when you approached with a strategy opposite to Mirim’s plan, he unfolded a shift in thinking that the opponent’s weaknesses would appear.
And now he was going to build the sports center underground.
“This kid is convinced that an empty space has better potential as a landmark… This would be construction that has almost never been tried domestically. What does he have to believe in to be that confident?”
There was another reason Geonshin could present such a confident idea. The other of Dominique Perrault’s two projects. The Ewha Women’s University Campus Complex project [ECC].
In six years, in 2008, the ECC would reveal itself and draw everyone’s attention, an innovative campus undergrounding project that planned classrooms, convenience facilities, performance halls, and more, all underground.
While maintaining an empty space at the campus entrance, the sunken garden cutting through the underground melted Perrault’s simple, restrained architectural philosophy into the earth. ECC became a new milestone, an idea that filled what a campus lacking area needed through emptiness.
In the end, too much is worse than too little.
“Ah… but didn’t the client say to get rid of the athletic field?”
Assistant Manager Soomin suddenly asked with a worried expression. But Team Leader Mo shook his head and held out the design brief.
“No. They said to replace the athletic field, they didn’t say we must eliminate it. Since they said to build a sports facility, everyone naturally thought that. Because everyone would think a landmark is a big mass you can easily see.”
“But if the sports center is all underground, it won’t feel pleasant. Will it be okay?”
This time, Director Yoo-uk continued with his criticism.
“Of course, I expected that, so I prepared.”
Geonshin opened the next slide of the PowerPoint. It was a section drawing cutting through the sidewalk, the athletic field, and the campus, standing them upright.
“If you look here, since the Gwangseong University site is located on a hill, there is a level difference like this. Even if it’s under the athletic field, from the sidewalk side it’s exposed to the outside by about three meters, so there are no issues with daylighting or ventilation. And we install long stairs on both sides of the sports center so residents can sit and rest, and naturally enter the athletic field that will become more like a park, and enjoy various landscapes.”
“What the hell. You came into this meeting already expecting those critiques too?!”
Director Yoo-uk had been shocked by Geonshin many times today alone.
The previous project aside, this was not an idea possible through simple architectural thinking alone. A wide range of creativity. A strategy created by creativity beyond imagination.
And when you looked at how Geonshin answered, there was a level of detail that you could never believe came from a student who had not experienced practical work on site.
Then Team Leader Mo, flipping through the design brief, said,
“Then is this Mirim Architecture’s weakness? That they removed the athletic field because they misunderstood what a landmark was? But you saw the athletic field, there were no students using it. Maybe what students need is a flashy sports facility. How are you going to respond to that logic?”
“Yes. Mirim Architecture’s second misunderstanding, and Gwangseong University’s huge misconception, is exactly this point.”
“What? Gwangseong University’s misconception?”
“Yes. The truth is, the school does not belong to the president, the students are the owners.”
Geonshin connected the digital camera to the laptop. Then he dug through the folder contents and played a video. In the video, you could see Gwangseong University’s student cafeteria, and students laughing and chatting.
Ewha Womans University Campus Complex (ECC), Dominique Perrault (Dominique Perrault, 2008)
Leave a Reply