Sanggye 341-5 is a high-density mixed-use complex with 3 commercial units and 21 micro residential studios, located on the northern edge of Seoul, Korea. Located next to a subway station, the design intent was to mitigate the noise and density by creating a spatial buffer around the program elements. The Korean housing market has seen a monotonous development of housing slabs mostly geared towards 3-4 member families for the last few decades, and it is only recently that it began to see the increasing demand of families with smaller number of members. Nevertheless, the code on which smaller housing units are based has been in the gray area between commercial and residential and not been defined properly. In 2009 the Korean Housing Authority instated a new housing code to regulate the micro-housings; the move was to lift up the old housing regulation to support more flexible development of those types by streamlining the building code, maintenance/operation regulations, and taxing system. It also has enabled redevelopment of small private lots in the existing urban fabric to accommodate diverse mixture of programs.
