Speculative Architecture / Research
Ahran Won
Speculative Architecture Reel · silent / loop Project №01 / 2026
Project №01 / 2026
Piano Factory

Ephemeral Architecture

A building designed to grow old. The ETFE membrane weathers, the steel lattice rusts, the materials accept their site over a century. Architecture, here, is the choreography of slow death.

Type
Cultural / mixed-use
Site
Printers Row, Chicago, IL
Across from
Dearborn Train Station
Programme
Piano factory · public hall
Skin
ETFE membrane on steel lattice
Time horizon
0 — 100 years
Material
Time itself
Status
Research / unbuilt
Plate I — the street corner
Plate I The street corner, Printers Row. The ETFE skin is hung on a steel lattice that already begins to read as something between scaffolding and bone. The masonry neighbours have stood a century; this building intends to do the same, and then to surrender. Render · 2026
/ 00 — Abstract

The conventional building is designed to resist time. Piano Factory is designed to invite it.

An ETFE membrane is held in tension on a steel lattice. ETFE clouds and dulls over forty years. Steel rusts. Concrete spalls. The brief includes its own undoing — the building is authored down to the moment of its surrender.

The piano at the centre is tuned monthly. It is the only element designed to outlast the building. A counter-monument whose principal material is time itself.

Keywords Ephemeral architecture Weathering ETFE membrane Slow death Counter-monument Time as material
/ 01 — Plate II. Year 00 / Year 100.

The same site, a century apart.

Same vantage. Same clock tower. Same building. Weathering is not failure — it is authorship continued into time.

Year 00 — newly completed
Year 100 — surrendered to time
Year 00 Year 100
— a building, dissolving across one hundred years —
Plate II Year 00 / Year 100. At completion, the ETFE is taut and silver. A century on, the membrane has yellowed and torn; vegetation has taken the upper floors. The clock tower still keeps time. The piano is still tuned. Diptych render · 2026
/ 02 — Timeline of decay
  1. Year 0Completion. ETFE taut, steel silver.
  2. Year 25First patina. Membrane begins to cloud.
  3. Year 50Birds nest in the gap. Habitat forms.
  4. Year 75Membrane fatigue. First tears appear.
  5. Year 100Vegetal occupation. Building surrenders.

No renovation schedule. The structure is a slow gift to the city — its death choreographed but not prevented. The piano at the centre will outlast the building. This too is by design.

Plate III — newly completed, Printers Row
Plate III The building at completion. ETFE membrane still silver, the steel lattice still sharp. Birds and migrating monarchs find the 600mm gap between membrane and glass — a habitat the building did not know it was making. Render · 2026
Plate IV — interior, the piano hall
Plate IV The piano hall. Light filters through ETFE folds. The grand piano at the centre — public, played daily — is the heart of a building whose body is already, quietly, beginning to age. Render · 2026
Plate V — winter dusk, vegetation arriving
Plate V Winter dusk, sometime in the building's second life. Vegetation has begun to colonise the upper floors. The architecture is no longer the only inhabitant of itself. Render · 2026
/ 03 — Notes

On weathering.

A — On material time

The architectural canon treats time as the enemy. Piano Factory inverts this — the brief includes its own decay.

ETFE lasts approximately forty years before it dulls; we chose it for the precision of its life-span. The steel lattice will hold for a century, then will not. Concrete spalls predictably, almost on a schedule. Every material is chosen for what it will become, not only for what it is.

This is the inversion of the conservation impulse. Where most buildings are designed to be preserved, Piano Factory is designed to be witnessed. The city will return to it repeatedly, drawn by the slow strangeness of a building that refuses to be finished.

Year 100 is not pessimistic. It is the working condition of the architecture. The building grows old in public, with the city present at every stage.

The piano at the centre is tuned monthly. It will outlast the studio that designed the building. It will, in all likelihood, outlast the building. The piano is the durable thing; the architecture is the ephemeral one. This too is by design.

/ 04 — References
  1. Mostafavi, M. & Leatherbarrow, D. (1993). On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  2. Hill, J. (2012). Weather Architecture. London: Routledge.
  3. Sennett, R. (2008). The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  4. Tsing, A. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  5. SOM. (2018). Printers Row Historic District Survey. Chicago: City of Chicago.
  6. Yoshikawa, S. (2002). The Acoustics of the Concert Hall. Tokyo: Ongaku no Tomo.
Speculative Architecture Reel · silent / loop Project №02 / 2026
Project №02 / 2026
Irregular City

Neo-spiritual Urbanism

A speculative masterplan. The city as a translucent organism, bound by a single hydrological cycle.

Type
Speculative masterplan
Site
Coastal — undisclosed
Programme
Hydrological urbanism
Mediums
Render, axonometric, section
Status
Research / unbuilt
Year
2026 —
Plate I — the urban fabric
Plate I The city as filtration apparatus. Crystalline volumes channel six water cycles. Render · 2026
/ 00 — Abstract

Six water cycles — saline, grey, geothermal, rain, sewage, industrial — generate the spatial sequence. Each district is a station in a continuous metabolism.

Infrastructure is not concealed beneath architecture but constitutes it. Pink piping is made legible against concrete and glass.

Keywords Hydrological urbanism Speculative masterplan Infrastructural transparency Coastal ecology Urban metabolism
Plate II
Plate II Section through the water plaza. Grey-water cycle, geothermal wells, septic logic. Section drawing · 2026
Plate III
Plate III Aerial — residential cluster. Envelope as shelter and atmospheric instrument. Render · 2026
Plate IV
Plate IV Water edge — threshold between infrastructure and inhabited ground. Render · 2026
Plate V
Plate V Masterplan with building type catalogue: helio-morphic, wind-aligned, embracing, square-cove. Plan / collage · 2026
Plate VI
Plate VI Ground condition. The pipes are inhabited, not hidden. Render · 2026
/ 01 — Notes

Research notes.

A — On method

The drawings hold two ideas at once: the schematic logic of the hydrological system, and the atmospheric experience of inhabiting it.

The pink is not decoration — it is borrowed from infrastructural codes, the colour of recycled water lines, and re-deployed at architectural scale. Where convention asks pipes to disappear, here they become façade, structure, threshold.

The work was developed without a brief. There is no client. The site is undisclosed. The plates are not proposals — they are positions.

/ 02 — References
  1. Banham, R. (1969). The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment. London: Architectural Press.
  2. Easterling, K. (2014). Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. London: Verso.
  3. Koolhaas, R., AMO. (2014). Elements of Architecture. Venice: Marsilio.
  4. MVRDV, The Why Factory. (2018). Copy Paste: The Badass Copy Guide. Rotterdam: nai010.
  5. Smithson, A. & P. (1965). The Charged Void: Urbanism. New York: Monacelli.
  6. Young, L. (2020). Planet City. Melbourne: Uro Publications.
Speculative Architecture Reel · silent / loop Project №03 / 2026
Project №03 / 2026
DMZ Military Zone
서생원 鼠生員

Seosengwon

A protocol for clearing the Korean DMZ. The work renames the African pouched rat Seosengwon — the honourable rat of Korean folk painting — and gives it a new occupation: peace.

Type
Landscape / protocol
Site (strip)
Korean DMZ, 38°N
Site (campus)
Kaesong Industrial Region
Length
250 km
Width
4 km strip
Mines (est.)
~ 1,000,000
Protagonist
서생원 · the rat
Time horizon
2026 — 2076 (50 yr)
Status
Research / unbuilt
Seosengwon — frontispiece
서생원 鼠生員 Frontispiece · 2026
Plate 0 Seosengwon, robed in hanbok, stands on the old Gyeongui Line between Seoul and Pyongyang. The mines are rusted, the rail is broken, the animals have returned. Frontispiece · 2026
Plate I
Plate I Two soldiers — one from each side — watch the Seosengwon locate a buried mine. The rat is too light to trigger the device. The men have stopped working. This is the work. Render · 2026
Plate II
Plate II Two soldiers, two Seosengwon, one minefield. The characters above the horizon — 평화 통일 — name the impossible thing the protocol attempts. Render · 2026
/ 00 — Abstract

The DMZ is the most heavily mined strip of land on earth. It is also, by accident, one of the most ecologically intact landscapes in northeast Asia.

The proposal is a 50-year demining protocol carried out jointly by the two Koreas. Its protagonist is a rat — too light to detonate a mine, trained to detect explosives by smell. The work renames it Seosengwon, the honourable rat of Korean folk painting, and gives it a new occupation.

Watchtowers are kept. Fences are removed slowly. The forest stays. Architecture, here, is the choreography of retreat.

Keywords Seosengwon DMZ Demining Folk-painting reframed Bilateral protocol Rewilding
/ 01 — Sites
38°15′N · 127°36′E
Cheorwon plain

Old battle site. Heaviest mine density. Habitat for the Korean crane.

38°02′N · 127°02′E
Yeoncheon corridor

River crossing. The Hantan flows through the strip — a soft border.

38°22′N · 128°16′E
Goseong coast

East end. Where the DMZ meets the sea. Migratory bird stop.

Plate III
Plate III Aerial — clearance grid. Each cell is 4×4m. Workers advance in pairs. The old railroad to the north persists, untouched. Render · 2026
Plate IV
Plate IV The corridor at noon. Watchtowers are kept as monuments to the old border. The fences are slowly cut. The forest holds. Render · 2026
/ 02 — Facility / Plate V

The campus at Kaesong.

The protocol needs a home. Sited on the abandoned Kaesong Industrial Region — 70km from Seoul, 172km from Pyongyang — a bilateral facility where the Seosengwon are bred, trained, housed, and retired.

Today — industrial
Proposal — campus
Today / Industrial Proposal / Campus
— the same site, dissolving from industry to campus —
Plate V Aerial of the Kaesong site, before and after. Five facilities — breeding, training, housing, monitoring, health — held within a single ring road. Aerial render · annotated · 2026
/ 03 — Programme
  1. 01Diet / Enrichment / BreedingReproduction and behavioural enrichment. The pups stay with their mothers for ten weeks.
  2. 02TrainingNine months of clicker-and-reward training, TNT recognition by scent, lead-work.
  3. 03Housing / HandlingDaily housing in small social groups. Handlers rotate to prevent imprinting.
  4. 04Monitoring / EvaluationTest fields of inert mines. Each Seosengwon is re-certified annually.
  5. 05Health CheckVeterinary clinic. Retirement at year seven. Burial on site.
Lifespan6 — 7 years
Training time9 months
To Seoul–DMZ70 km
To Pyongyang172 km
SiteKaesong Industrial Region
/ 04 — Glossary

Terms of the protocol.

A — Bilingual
/ 05 — Notes

On the border that was.

A — Method

The protocol assumes co-operation. This is itself the speculation. Two military commands, working in pairs, in 4×4m grid cells, advancing 80m per year. At this pace, the strip is cleared in fifty years.

The rat does the seeing. A human pulls the lead. A second human, on the other side of the lead, watches. The triangular yellow signs — written in three languages, 지뢰 / MINE / 地雷 — are removed only after the cell is verified.

Architecture builds. This work proposes that architecture can also unbuild. The protocol designs the choreography of removal — fences, mines, signs — while keeping what the strip itself produced: the forest.

Keep the watchtowers. Keep three of them, well-spaced, as physical citation. Everything else returns to forest, to river, to ground.

/ 06 — References
  1. Kim, E. (2014). The Plant: A Korean DMZ Field Report. Seoul: Hyohyung.
  2. APOPO. (2022). HeroRAT Detection Protocols, Version 7. Morogoro, Tanzania.
  3. Cumings, B. (2010). The Korean War: A History. New York: Modern Library.
  4. Kwon, H.-Y. (2018). Borders and Belongings in Divided Korea. Stanford University Press.
  5. UN Mine Action Service. (2024). Global Landmine Status Report. Geneva.
  6. Lee, S. (2019). Wild DMZ: Sixty Years of Accidental Wilderness. Paju: Munhakdongne.
Speculative Architecture Reel · silent / loop Project №04 / 2024
Project №04 / 2024
Library

Authentic Forest of Learning

A library without walls. Organic concrete columns stand in for tree trunks. The floor itself is a bookshelf — readers settle into it the way one settles into the forest floor.

Type
Library / civic
Site
Chinatown, Chicago IL
Programme
Public library · learning space
Structure
Concrete columns, no walls
Material
Concrete · wood · vegetation
Studio
M.ARCH Core Studio
School
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Year
2024
Plate I — Chinatown, at dusk
Plate I The library at dusk, on the corner of S. Archer and S. Wentworth. A column forest stands between the Chinatown gate and the Sears Tower skyline. The classical Confucian inscription — 知之者不如好之者, 好之者不如樂之者 ("The one who knows is not equal to the one who loves; the one who loves is not equal to the one who finds joy") — anchors the new civic ground. Render · 2024
Plate II — the reading floor
Plate II A child reads against the base of a column. The curved floor-bookshelf — a piece of architecture made for sitting, not standing. Render · 2024
/ 00 — Abstract

It is a place to be creative, free, and comfortable — like sitting down at a spot to read in the woods. The floor bookshelves engage the user with the ground plane of the building.

The organic shaped columns represent tree trunks. They are densest along private areas, and sparser in public lounges. Each column carries a ventilation system within. Concrete — at once cool and warm — is the primary material.

Natural light is introduced through openings on the ceiling, designed along the shape of beams on the columns.

Keywords Library Columns instead of walls Floor bookshelves Concrete forest Civic space Chinatown
Plate III — the community lounge
Plate III The community lounge. Columns thin out, the floor opens up. Reading is no longer private — it is shared, overheard, watched. Render · 2024
Plate IV — exploded axonometric
Plate IV Exploded axonometric. The building is read in five strata: daylight openings, beams, the column lattice, the upper reading floor, and the ground entrance. Solar geometry from 25° winter low to 73° summer noon is plotted at the top. Studio drawing · 2024
Plate V — 1st and 2nd floor plans
Plate V Floor plans, 1F and 2F. The plan follows the sidewalk curve at the corner of S. Archer and S. Wentworth — a fan-shaped footprint opening toward two streets. Thirteen zones: lobby, sunken gathering, open lounge, work, social, quiet lounge, reading nooks, terrace. Drawing · 2024
Plate VI — column meeting slab
Plate VI Column meeting slab. Where the tree-trunk concrete columns flare outward to receive the upper floor — a detail repeated dozens of times across the plan, never quite identical. Render · 2024
/ 01 — Notes

On columns.

A — On method

The premise is structural and atmospheric at once: replace the wall as the primary spatial element with the column.

Walls divide. Columns gather. A library organised by columns is a library in which the boundaries between rooms are negotiable, and the reader's body — not the architect's plan — defines the space.

The floor bookshelves are not a graphic move. They acknowledge a fact about reading: that the body wants to settle, to lean, to lie down. The architecture provides the surfaces for this.

Columns are densest at the perimeter and along the private reading rooms. They thin out toward the centre, where the public lounge gathers. The plan is a forest with a clearing.

/ 02 — Acknowledgements
  1. Studio: M.ARCH Core Studio, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
  2. Aalto, A. (1935). Viipuri Library. Vyborg.
  3. Kahn, L. (1972). Exeter Library. Phillips Exeter Academy.
  4. Borges, J. L. (1941). The Library of Babel. Buenos Aires: Sur.
Speculative Architecture Reel · silent / loop Project №05 / 2026
Project №05 / 2026
Roller Derby Stadium

Kaleido Spin

A dual-track venue for the fastest contact sport on wheels. An ETFE membrane is folded into thousands of facets — read from beneath, it spins. The roof is a kaleidoscope in geometric form.

Type
Stadium / spectacle
Sport
Roller derby
Tracks
Two, concurrent
Roof
ETFE membrane on steel
Optic
Kaleidoscope (spinning)
Pavilions
Entry · Support · Service · Specialty
Status
Research / unbuilt
Year
2026
Plate I — the stadium at night
Plate I The stadium at night. The faceted ETFE skin glows from within — the steel lattice reads as drawing, the membrane as light. An object lit by its own programme. Render · 2026
/ 00 — Abstract

Roller derby is the rare contact sport organised around continuous motion. Two jammers move through a pack of blockers, lapping the track, scoring each pass. The geometry of the game is circular and relentless.

The proposal answers that geometry with another. Above the dual track, an ETFE membrane is folded into thousands of triangular facets. From beneath, the spectator looks up into a kaleidoscope — the same optical instrument that rotates pattern into pattern. The roof appears to spin with the players.

Below the membrane, the building disaggregates. Four pavilion typologies — Entry, Support, Service, Specialty — handle the stadium's programme as discrete objects within a single ring. The architecture is heterogeneous; the optic is one.

Keywords Roller derby Kaleidoscope ETFE membrane Faceted geometry Dual track Pavilion typology
Plate II — aerial, lit
Plate II Aerial — the stadium lit from within. The membrane reads as a single, glowing facet across the dual track. The plan beneath is barely legible — only the light is. Aerial render · 2026
Plate III — aerial, dormant
Plate III The same building, dormant. Without the light of the game, the membrane is opaque, the geometry latent. The stadium reads as a settled object on the ground — waiting for the next bout. Aerial render · 2026
/ 01 — Programme

Four pavilions.

/ Pavilion typologies
  1. AEntry PavilionsPrimary entry and orientation. Concrete base, ETFE roof, steel structure — the visitor's first reading of the building's vocabulary.
  2. BSupport PavilionsConcessions, restrooms, public amenities. Distributed around the track perimeter so no single queue dominates the circulation.
  3. CService PavilionsBack-of-house, locker rooms, medical, broadcast. Sited at the perimeter; opaque against the membrane's translucency.
  4. DSpecialty PavilionsTraining rooms, fan club spaces, retail. The eccentric programmes that distinguish derby culture from mainstream sport.
TracksTwo, concurrent
TypologiesFour pavilion types
MaterialsConcrete · ETFE · Steel pipe
Plan formPolygonal ring
Roof spanSingle membrane
Plate IV — building typologies and site plan
Plate IV Building typologies (left) and site plan (right). Each pavilion is composed of three materials — exposed concrete, ETFE membrane, steel pipe — combined in different proportions for each typology. The site plan shows the dual tracks held within the polygonal ring. Drawing set · 2026
/ 02 — Roof system

The kaleidoscope.

A — On the optic

A kaleidoscope is a cylinder of mirrors. Looked into, it multiplies its small content into endless symmetry. The instrument turns; the pattern rotates with the eye.

The roof works the same way, only the spectator does not turn the cylinder — the players do. Each lap of the track is a small rotation through the spectator's field of vision. The membrane catches that rotation: the facets, lit from below, refract the players' motion into pattern.

The architecture asks a single question: what would it mean for a building's surface to participate in the sport it shelters? The answer is the membrane.

Plate V — ETFE membrane study
Plate V Studies of the ETFE membrane. Left column: physical model in monochrome, capturing the way pattern accumulates as the eye moves through the cylinder. Right column: the built condition — the same geometry, refracting daylight. Material study · 2026
Plate VI — concourse under the membrane
Plate VI The concourse, between bouts. A curved concrete bench gathers spectators along the edge of the inner ring. Above, the ETFE membrane reads at full extent — thousands of facets dissolved into a single, even light. Render · 2026
Plate VII — entrance pavilion in daylight
Plate VII Entrance pavilion at midday. The same diamond geometry that, at night, becomes lantern; by day, becomes thicket. The steel members are read as drawing against the daylight membrane. Render · 2026
/ 03 — References
  1. Brewster, D. (1817). A Treatise on the Kaleidoscope. Edinburgh: Constable.
  2. Joseph, M. (2014). Roller Derby to the Death. Brooklyn: Akashic.
  3. Otto, F. & Rasch, B. (1995). Finding Form: Towards an Architecture of the Minimal. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges.
  4. Vector Foiltec. (2014). ETFE Foil: Properties and Applications. Bremen.
  5. Wigley, M. (1998). Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: 010.