Rainbow Publishing Headquarters

Volcanic stone wraps a building that tells the history of the Korean people. The Rainbow Publishing House makes small print-run biographies of the ordinary people who were responsible for the extraordinary history of modern Korea. The building is centred around the hundred-year stair, wrapping around a bookcase that has one shelf for each of the years of the twentieth century. Biographies are placed in the year when the person was born. A layered facade of volcanic hyeonmu-am stone bricks forms the facade of the building, evoking the passage of time and the accumulation of history. Climbing five flights of stairs a day is associated with an 18% reduction in mortality rate. The building includes a tracking system that captures the number of flights of stairs each resident has climbed and allows them to compete with one another, encouraging them to healthy living. The collection of movement data through the building continues and over the years, this forms another layer of living history captured within the building.