By imagining an alternative reality and rediscovering his cultural background, architect Jae Kyung Kim of JK-AR established his identity as an architect when creating his practice, selected as one of ArchDaily’s New Practices 2023. After studying and working in South Korea and the US, he’d noticed an absence of traditional Asian architecture, which had peaked his interest. He began to thoroughly look at a possibility where the traditional timber buildings of East Asia had still been relevant and continued to evolve.
I thought about an alternate reality in which several historical events of the past century have not occurred. What if timber resources had not been depleted in Asian countries in the 17th to 19th Centuries? Despite the exhaustion of timber, what if globalization had begun earlier and had introduced the import of wooden materials from as affordable as it is now? Finally, what if the reinforced concrete structure had not dominated the architecture of the 21st century? These premises would have provided an opportunity to retain a culture of timber architecture that Asians had kept for at least 2000 years, and may further lead us to experience a new architecture.
Reappropriating Tradition
For an overview, the traditional East Asian bracket system was used in the region from as early as 700 BC and kept evolving along China, Korea, Japan, and so on, with slightly different interpretations coming about as per need and local style. The system generally consists of wooden pieces that are precisely fastened and fitted together without using glue through meticulous craftsmanship. This intertwined network becomes a fortifier that joins the building pillars and columns to the roof frame as a single system with well-distributed loads. The bracket's pieces tend to expand beyond the width of the beam, ensuring a wider roof and providing the unique aesthetic of the extended roofs. It's also appreciated for the flexibility it extends, facilitating bounce and earthquake resistance. Its aesthetic value is also one of its key traits, with its three-dimensional effects accomplished through the complex assembly of wooden elements with joinery.
With this tradition and construction history around him, it was important for the JK-AR director to create design and fabrication methods to reinvent the wooden bracket system. “The reason why I focused on the bracket system is that it is the most critical part in East Asian timber architecture both structurally and aesthetically.”_Jae K Kim
Re-conception Thought Process
To re-invent the wooden bracket system and bring it to the 21st century, Jae Kyung Kim sought to couple it with the most current technologies through design computation and digital fabrication, thus showcasing its continued relevance and versatile structural qualities even amidst today’s new constructions. This critical structural capacity was in fact, the first reason JK-AR had chosen to focus on this particular element of traditional East Asian architecture. Another reason the bracket system was the practice's chosen focus was that the generative composition of its wooden elements suggested a potential to be re-created by parametric design.
Consequently, this brought on the third reason, which was that today’s advanced craftsmanship and fabrication with the implementation of new technologies and machines could revive the bracket system, which was often deemed too complex, making its use more and more limited/un-coveted by contemporary builders.
By virtue of today’s advanced crafting and fabricating machine technology, the wooden bracket system could be revived, and it would give East Asian timber architecture, which has been forgotten, a chance to evolve. -- Jae K Kim
Wood Through the Ages
Wood remained the material of choice as the architects took on the challenge of modernizing the East Asian bracket system. As a self-proclaimed Digital Carpenter, Jae Kyung Kim was always fascinated by the beauty of joinery and considered wood the ideal material for experimentation as the JK-AR team used state-of-the-art techniques. “Wood is a good material you can handle by yourself to experiment with various assemblies and joints for making form and structure. It is not easy to do the same things with concrete and steel, and sometimes you have to rely on other specialists.”_Jae K Kim
The main noted difficulty in appropriating wood as the material of choice was the building codes in Korea, which were stringent about the use of wood in the structural system of a building. Even if fireproof, and structurally sound, it was still restricted in some parts as there were no building codes related to this old/new case.
Having set the goal, done the research, and through meticulous digital modeling, JK-AR took the traditional system and gave it its new form, as seen in the below image progression:
The original inspiration and the final result.
A visual comparison between the traditional bracket system and the new rendition following decomposition, technological optimization, stylization, and machine production.
Development and contemporization from original brackets to the JK-AR Tree Series.
The idea of a pre-planned puzzle-like composition is maintained, although using new technologies and optimizing tools generates a novel result achievable through machine carpentry.
Tree Series testing and model brackets.
A still model of the original bracket and another rendition from a multitude of possible transformations of the New Tree Series.
Adding movement and dimensions to the brackets.
The 3D development/ testing suggests a unique movement and exploration of the diagonal, facilitated by the use of joinery.
JK-AR’s exploration continues, intending to evolve their work into a hybrid system of timber and 3D-printed metal joints. With new investigations of the horizon, the practice aims to overcome the limitations of structural performance in current projects, making them larger both in width and height with the use of implanted metal joints. They will also push the system’s boundaries, creating “non-perpendicularly and free-formly combined wooden elements” by implementing 3D-printed metal joints. These ongoing endeavors will be further featured in JK-AR’s upcoming projects as they take on larger spans and different project programs.
