In the quietly rhythmic heart of Seoul’s Itaewon district—an area already defined by cultural confluence—HaHouse Cafe by Niceworkshop unfolds as a subdued yet intricate study in material mimicry and spatial empathy.
Designed by Hyunseog Oh, founder of the Seoul-based studio, the cafe interior is a layered architectural gesture that not only respects its urban fabric but also pushes against it. Concrete, stainless steel, and wood—materials that typically signify divergent registers—are here braided into a cohesive visual language through subtle tactile illusions and referential layering.
What might, at first glance, register as a pared-back industrial space quickly reveals itself as something more intricate: stainless steel etched to mimic wood grain, hand-sanded reflective doors that blur inside and out, and timber furniture assembled with visible joinery, all coalesce into a meditation on coexistence. Oh’s Neo-Naturalism, a recurring theme in his furniture practice, permeates the cafe’s identity. It’s an ideology not of simulation but of poetic transformation—nature rendered in artificial media, evoking a kind of affective ambiguity that resonates with the city’s constructed topographies.
The intervention is anchored by the discovery of two concrete walls during demolition—existing ghosts of the building’s prior life—which now dictate the axis and rhythm of the space. Rather than obscuring these elements, Oh has made them central to the spatial narrative, stamping concrete with wood textures and reflecting surfaces that oscillate between clarity and opacity. In doing so, the cafe doesn't merely offer coffee or comfort, but a sensorial and conceptual experience: a constructed landscape where material memory and digital-era craft intersect.
Above the cafe, the accompanying gallery continues this dialectic of urban-natural synthesis, reinforcing HaHouse’s role as a pluralistic cultural site. More than a mere cafe, it emerges as a contemporary sanctum—a spatial essay that gestures toward a future where tactile nuance and architectural honesty reclaim their place in the urban condition.
