Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 49

Kim Ki-tae was a busy student. He was in his third year at K University, studying Spatial Design. He was also the head of the student group. It felt like he lived at school these days.

He had a lot to do. Being head of the student group was hard work. His classes in the first part of third year were known to be very tough. And he was getting ready for the SPDC competition. It was a lot to handle.

He was tired, but he always seemed confident and calm.

Since entering the school, his GPA had never fallen below 4.2.

Since his second year, he had won almost every competition he entered. People at the university knew who he was because of this.

‘Now that the final assignments are almost done… I just need to focus on the competition,’ he thought.

But even for Kim Ki-tae, who had won so many awards, the SPDC competition was incredibly important.

Winning one big prize at SPDC was much better than winning many smaller prizes.

He had entered this competition in his second year as well, but had only received an ‘Honorable Mention’.

‘I underestimated SPDC last year. But this year will be different, for sure,’ he promised himself.

Kim Ki-tae was preparing for this competition with a vengeance.

He worked hard to improve his design. He showed it to professors many times to get their advice.

His father’s company helped him turn his design into very detailed plans, like the kind used for building.

The same thing happened for the analysis of the site and the building rules.

Ki-tae’s father was a managing director at Myungsung Construction, one of the top construction companies.

With just a word from his father, many people in the company could handle everything from looking at the site to making the design.

Of course, he wasn’t letting them do all the design work.

Ki-tae had created the space himself, and the basic design was his own idea.

But his father helped him a bit to make the rough plans more complete and ready to be built.

‘It’s still my design,’ he thought, making excuses. ‘I just saved some time.’

The model of the building had also been ordered from a company that Myungsung Construction often used, and it would be finished and delivered soon.

Now, he just needed to make a good presentation board to show his design.

But that didn’t mean he was going to relax.

Ki-tae was planning to use all his remaining time to create the best presentation he could.

‘The top prize. I have to get it, no matter what. I don’t need any other awards,’ he said to himself.

Ki-tae, who had never failed at anything, thought this time would be the same.

The SPDC competition was only for students still in university. Ki-tae thought no other student team in Seoul could create a design as good as his.

It wasn’t just that his design was a little better.

He believed he would win the top prize easily, beating everyone else by a lot.

‘There is no next time…’

Ki-tae was planning to study architecture in Spain after his third year.

So, this year was really his last chance to enter SPDC. That’s why it was so important to him.

He wanted to leave something important behind in Seoul before he went to Spain, something to be proud of.

If Ki-tae won the top prize at SPDC, his design would be chosen and built.

The reason why SPDC winning designs often don’t get built is that no construction company wants to build them.

But for Ki-tae, who had Myungsung Construction supporting him, that would never happen.

Thinking about this made Ki-tae happy. He sat down at his computer and started working even harder.

He could almost see it already – the first building with his name on it, Architect Kim Ki-tae.

* * *

“Hey, what about that parking lot that’s partly underground, using the different ground levels? Maybe we can use that idea too?”

Soyeon looked quickly where Jaden was pointing.

Woojin was already looking there. He nodded and said,

“That’s right. I was looking at that too.”

Soyeon noticed the design late. Her eyes widened.

“Wow, you can design a parking lot like that?”

The land where the Seun Nursing Hospital was built was shaped like a triangle, getting wider as it went downhill.

They were looking at a part of the land that went down like a bowl, shaped like the letter ‘D’ turned sideways.

If the building wasn’t designed well, people would have to walk up and down stairs every time they went between the hospital and the nursing home.

‘If it had been built like that, it would have been the worst design ever,’ she thought.

Of course, they could have built a bridge between the buildings, but that wasn’t a very smart solution.

A bridge could be a solution, but only if it looked good as part of the design.

If not, it would just be wasted space.

But the architect who designed this Seun Nursing Hospital had solved the problem very cleverly.

The architect cleverly used the dip in the land to make a basement parking lot. This solved the problem of the different ground levels between the buildings.

‘Smart idea,’ she thought. ‘It solves two problems at once: the different ground levels and the cost of parking.’

The size of the underground parking lot doesn’t count when you calculate how big the building can be overall.

This means that the area of the building that can be built doesn’t get smaller just because the underground parking lot is big.

However, many building owners still don’t build enough underground parking because it costs too much.

Building underground parking is expensive for owners because it’s just for parking or storage, not for offices or shops.

But if you use the land’s shape to make a parking lot that’s partly above ground, like this nursing home, you can save a lot of money on digging.

Jaden just thought it was a clever design. But Woojin was thinking about all the practical reasons why it was so good, and he admired it even more.

‘You have to visit the place to really understand it,’ he thought.

Woojin, who had found an interesting design, looked closely at the outside of the nursing home, smiling.

But apart from this clever parking lot, the rest of the nursing hospital building was quite plain.

It was clear the building was made to be useful, not beautiful. There weren’t any other interesting design details.

Woo-jin finished looking at the outside of the building. Now, he wanted to see inside.

But then, Woo-jin stopped, tilting his head slightly. He was confused.

‘Hmm……?’

While Woo-jin was thinking about the building’s outside, Jaden was sitting on a large rock. He was sketching a picture of the nursing home on yellow paper.

‘Why is he doing that?’

Scritch scritch-

Woo-jin was curious, so he walked over to Jaden and asked,

“Why are you drawing this, Jaden?”

Jaden answered confidently, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We need a drawing to look at during the meeting, don’t we?”

Woo-jin blinked, surprised, and said,

“For that, you could just take a photo with your phone.”

“……?!”

“Why are you drawing it?”

“W-Well, that’s because…!”

“Jaden, are you sure drawing is the best way?”

Woo-jin was about to tease Jaden, who was stammering, but So-yeon, who was behind Woo-jin, came to Jaden’s rescue again.

“Jaden’s sketch has a nice feel to it.”

“Hmm……?”

“We also need to make a big panel to show at the contest.”

“So?”

“If we put Jaden’s sketches on one side of the panel and make it look good, it could make the process look better. We can make it even better later with drawings and Photoshop.”

Jaden’s eyes widened, and a big smile spread across his face. He jumped up and said,

“Y-Yes, So-yeon is so smart! Woo-jin didn’t understand my clever idea!”

“I think this is So-yeon’s idea, not Jaden’s?”

“No, that’s a misunderstanding. It’s not like that, Woo-jin.”

Woo-jin was teasing Jaden with a smile, but he was a little surprised by what So-yeon said.

So-yeon had noticed something that Woo-jin hadn’t even thought about.

‘I need to think about how to decorate the panel,’ he thought.

The things they needed for the SPDC contest were mainly two things.

One was a large panel that showed everything from the design idea to the process, drawings, and views.

The other was a model of the building, based on the drawings, that was not bigger than 70cm in any direction.

The model was not a problem.

Woo-jin’s workshop, WJ Studio, was known for making very realistic models.

But the panel was different.

The panel was supposed to show how the design and drawings were made, so the judges could understand it.

Woo-jin didn’t have much more skill in this than other students.

He was sure he could impress people with just the model.

But even if the model looked great and the drawings were good, if the panel didn’t look right, the whole project might look worse.

He didn’t want to lose points for the panel design.

Woo-jin realized he had missed something important.

‘The design itself is important, but how it’s presented is also important.’

The sketch that Jaden was drawing wasn’t very helpful for designing and planning.

It was just a drawing of the building as it already was, so it couldn’t help with a new design.

But it could still make the panel look better.

If there were more sketches from the beginning of the design, the judges would see that they had put more thought into it.

‘A nice-looking panel but a bad design is the worst… but only showing the design makes it seem like they didn’t try hard enough.’

So, Woo-jin and So-yeon waited for Jaden to finish his sketches, then walked back down the hill with him.

“I saw a road going into the nursing home. Are we going that way?”

“That’s right.”

But their investigation was soon stopped by a problem.

The security guards of the nursing home stopped them from entering because of an investigation.

“I’m sorry. Unless you are family members, you can’t enter until August.”

“Um… Can we just take a quick look around?”

“It’s the director’s rule, so we can’t do anything. Recently, there’s been a bad outbreak of the flu… It can be deadly for old people with weak immune systems.”

The reason for not letting them in was very clear, so they couldn’t argue.

“Hmm… What should we do?”

Woo-jin had to turn around and leave the nursing home. He started to think.

The flu outbreak probably wasn’t just in Bulgwang-dong.

So, even if they went to another nursing home, it might be the same situation.

But then, as Woo-jin was thinking,

“Um… Oppa.”

“Yeah?”

So-yeon, who had been hesitating, started to talk to Woo-jin again.