A documentation of built form. Each project is recorded with the precision of a site engineer's field report — materials noted, dimensions verified, surfaces examined under flat fluorescent light. The archive does not celebrate. It states. Every structure here was poured, cured, and stripped of its formwork before being committed to record.
Concrete: Grade C40/50. Aggregate: crushed granite, 20mm maximum. Cement: CEM I 52.5N. Water-cement ratio: 0.42. Slump: 75mm. Formwork: steel-faced plywood panels, 18mm thickness, oiled surface. Pour height: 3.0m maximum per lift. Vibration: internal poker, 40mm diameter, 12000 VPM. Curing: 7 days minimum under polythene sheeting.
The specification is the architecture. Every decision about aggregate size and water ratio is a decision about surface texture, color, and permanence. The building is designed twice — once in drawings, once in the mix design.
Construction proceeds in lifts. Each 3-meter vertical pour represents one day's work, one set of formwork panels erected, braced, and filled. The seams between pours are visible in the finished wall as faint horizontal lines — the building's own chronology written into its surface. We document these seams. They are not defects. They are the structure's diary.
The site office maintains a log: date, temperature, humidity, pour volume, vibration duration, curing method. This log becomes the building's birth certificate. Without it, the concrete is just stone. With it, the concrete is architecture.
The structural grid is 8.4 meters in both directions — a dimension derived from the turning radius of a standard Korean delivery truck, the span capacity of a 300mm deep concrete slab, and the width of two parking bays plus a driving lane. This single number generates the entire building. Every wall, every column, every window mullion exists at a multiple or subdivision of 8.4 meters.
Before the first excavation, the surveyor establishes the benchmarks. Every structure begins as a set of coordinates — points driven into the earth with steel pins and marked with fluorescent spray paint on the bare soil. The surveyor's work is the most permanent act in construction: the building can be demolished, but the coordinates persist in the cadastral record forever.
We approach documentation the same way. Every project is fixed to its coordinates — date, location, material, dimension — before any interpretation is applied. The facts precede the narrative. The concrete precedes the commentary.
Class A exposed concrete accepts no remediation. No patching, no skim coating, no paint. The surface you see is the surface that emerged when the formwork was stripped. Every blowhole, every form-tie mark, every subtle variation in color between pours is retained. This is the standard. The surface tells the truth of its making, and that truth is architectural.
Prefabrication demands that every panel is identical. The mould is made once; the concrete is poured hundreds of times. Variation is failure. The beauty of prefabricated housing lies in its refusal to perform individuality — every unit, every facade panel, every stairwell is the same, and this sameness is not poverty of imagination but richness of commitment to a single idea executed without deviation.
The same principle applies to this archive. Every block follows the same structure: number, metadata, content. Every rule is 2px and #B0B0B0. Every heading is Bebas Neue. The repetition is the design.
A building is complete when the certificate of occupancy is issued — not when the architect declares satisfaction, not when the last worker leaves the site. The certificate is a legal instrument: the structure has been inspected, tested, measured against the approved drawings, and found compliant. Only then does the building exist in the official record.
This studio operates by the same standard. A project is documented when it meets the specification. Not before. The record is the final act of construction.
gunsul.studio is a documentation practice focused on the architecture of construction — not the finished building, but the process of its making. We record formwork systems, concrete pours, structural grids, and material specifications with the precision of a site engineer's field report.
Inquiries: studio@gunsul.studio
Typography: Bebas Neue, Inter, IBM Plex Mono. Palette: Grayscale, #000000 to #FFFFFF. Layout: Single column, 720px fixed width. Structure: Concrete documentation archive. All specifications verified against site records.
This archive is sealed. No amendments, no addenda, no revisions. The record stands as cast — like concrete that has passed its 28-day strength test and can no longer be returned to its liquid state. What was poured is permanent. What was documented is final.
Concrete achieves its design strength at 28 days but continues to harden for decades. A building from 1977 is stronger now than when it was first occupied. Time is not the enemy of concrete — it is its collaborator. The same is true of documentation. These records do not expire. They accrue authority with each year they remain unchanged.