Hyphen Office & Bar

"Does an office have to look like an office?"

Hyphen’s space in Chungmuro is a design office. Hyphen is the predecessor of Studio Underbar. Underbar, the corporate name used back in the Hyphen days, became the name we use now. At the time, the space served as an office while doubling as a showroom.

Does an office have to look like an office? That is where the first question began. It was the question we raised at Office Underbar, and Hyphen Office/Bar is the first answer to it.

Most of Hyphen’s clients commission commercial spaces. So we built the office itself in a form that could demonstrate commercial-space design. In effect, we made visiting clients hold their meetings inside a finished commercial space. We wanted them to actually see and touch what kind of space Hyphen can make, and what a well-composed, well-finished space really is.

The space was built from two materials: plywood and SPF. On actual sites we use a wide range of materials, but the essence of Hyphen lay in working with restrained materials and pushing them to their absolute limit. With these two industrial timbers alone, we built everything from the floor to the shelving, the bar, and the tables. Restrained comfort, moderation - Hyphen’s design philosophy is carried straight through in the choice of material.

A large bar seating six occupies one side of the space. This bar does several jobs at once. It is a working classic bar, a staff pantry, a showroom for clients, and a meeting space.

Across from it sits a big table for six. Everyone, the principal included, works together at this table, with no partitions or individual desks. It is part of the company’s culture, and a setup meant to keep communication from bottlenecking in one place and wasting resources.

At 14 pyeong, it is not a large space. If anything, that is why we put such effort into creating architectural spatial presence. We wanted to show how much composition and density a design office can produce when it sets out in earnest to make something of its own, while still meeting the practical functions of an office. The bar, the big table, the long shelving unit that links areas of differing heights, and the parapet above the bar that doubles as bar storage all cut across the space in vertical and horizontal lines. By alternating solid mass with empty void, we built a strict sense of structure within a small footprint.

The bar was later run as a hybrid. Until 7 p.m. it is an office; from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. it is a classic bar. During office hours the handsome bar functions as a perk for the staff, and during the evening service hours the office becomes an intriguing element that lets bar guests indulge their fantasy of what a design firm is like. The very fact that such an unusual business model could be realized carried greater persuasive power for clients seeking out a space to build a commercial venue of their own.

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