The Imprint

Project: The Imprint, 2018
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Architect: MVRDV
Principal in Charge: Winy Maas
Partner: Wenchian Shi
Design Team: María López Calleja with Daehee Suk, Xiaoting Chen, Kyosuk Lee, Guang Ruey Tan, Stavros Gargaretas, Mafalda Rangel, and Dong Min Lee
Co-Architect: GANSAM Architects & Partners
Facade Consultant: VS-A Group Ltd
Panelization Consultant: WITHWORKS
GFRC: Techwall
Lighting: L’Observatoire International
Photography: Ossip van Duivenbode

MVRDV’s The Imprint is part of the larger Paradise City complex of six buildings in total, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometer away from South Korea’s largest airport. Given the proposed program of the two buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that is still integrated with the other buildings in the complex. The design of The Imprint therefore arises from a simple question: Can we design an expressive facade that connects with its surroundings even though it has no windows?

The design achieves this by projecting the facades of the surrounding buildings in the complex, which are "draped" over the simple building forms and plazas like a shadow, and "imprinted" as a relief pattern onto the facades.

In order to achieve the desired "imprint" of the surrounding buildings, the facade of The Imprint is constructed of glass-fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels. As many of the 3,869 panels are unique, the construction required molds to be individually produced using MVRDV’s 3D modeling files from the design phase. Once installed, these panels were painted white in order to emphasize the relief in the design.

The golden spot is the project’s most obvious and attention-grabbing expressive element, even catching the eyes of passengers coming in to land at Incheon Airport. The golden color is achieved simply, by using gold paint instead of white, and is reinforced by the lighting of the facades at night: while the majority of the facade is lit from below, the gold spot is highlighted from above.

The entrances, where the façades are lifted like a curtain to reveal mirrored ceilings and glass media floors, exude a sense of the excitement happening inside. Winy Maas says: "Reflection and theatricality are therefore combined. With our design, after the nightly escapades, a zen-like silence follows during the day, providing an almost literally reflective situation for the after parties. Giorgio de Chirico would have liked to paint it, I think."