Leema Desk
dyD Studios, Seoul

The Leema Company approached to update the reception desk we designed several years prior, when we did a complete renovation of the building lobby. As we developed the program with them, budget and logistics pushed us toward keeping as much of the existing desk and wire paths as possible. The original desk and overall lobby design envisioned an even, symmetrical load to the movement from the east and west entry doors. The ever changing urban fabric of Seoul, especially in this prime central location, created a somewhat asymmetrical usage. The east entry experienced somewhat more traffic. Even more, the pedestrian and motor traffic in the streets just outside the building grew asymmetrically, winding amidst the old new, one lane able to grow wider, another, remaining constrained by forces old and new, physical and financial. The dynamic, expanding, contracting flow around the building and its immediate neighborhood influenced the first version of the new reception desk. The original desk acted as a cornerstone, maintaining the pivotal position at the nexus of the entry axis and the elevator banks. The new desk would envelop the old, through a series of vertical wood slats, create an undulating wave form, inflating and deflating around the elliptical line of the existing reception.