Why have Seoul alleys become filled with cars···a comparison with Tokyo - 경향신문
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Front of a building photographed in an alley in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The first floor is built in a piloti structure and used as a parking lot. Provided by Oh Dong-geon, graduate student in architecture at Korea University
When you walk through residential alleys in Seoul, you see similar scenes. The ground floor of buildings is used for parking. Long ago, you could at least spot flowerpots in the alleys, but even those are rare these days. By contrast, in residential alleys of Tokyo, small trees and flower beds often appear between buildings and the street. Even without a large park, you can encounter ‘green’ in the alley. Where does this difference come from?
Yu Hyun-jun, a professor in the Department of Architecture at Hongik University, addressed this in a video posted last June on his YouTube channel ‘Sherlock Hyun-jun’ titled ‘The Decisive Difference Between Tokyo and Seoul,’ which has recorded 700,000 views. He first said it was “bittersweet.” He praised Tokyo streets, saying that when he walks there, “there are not many cars, there is a lot to see in the shops, and it feels safe,” but he lamented that when he walks in Seoul, “cars enter your field of view first, and the buildings are hidden behind them.”
He pointed to parking-related laws as the background that created the difference between the two cities. In Korea, securing a certain amount of parking is mandated when constructing a building, whereas in Japan it is not; instead, when buying a car, one must prove the existence of a parking space, which encourages prudence. In Japan, private small-scale garages are said to solve parking.
Is the claim that a ‘hairline difference’ in parking policy created a big gap between the two cities really true?
Nam Jeong-min, a professor in the Department of Architecture at Korea University, explained in a recent paper, ‘Thick Boundaries: The Institutional Grammar of Interface Spaces in Low-rise Residential Areas of Seoul and Tokyo’ (co-authored by Oh Dong-geon·Lee Dong-hoon), that this is not the whole story. The paper was also selected in September in the international paper competition hosted by the monthly architecture magazine <SPACE(Gonggan)>.
Front of a building photographed in an alley in Nakameguro, Meguro Ward, Tokyo. Provided by Nam Jeong-min, professor in the Department of Architecture at Korea University
To begin with, the research team also cited the parking system as a cause of the difference between Seoul and Tokyo.
The team analyzed that “in Seoul, the obligation to install accessory parking in almost all buildings makes it easy for the first floor to be overtaken by parking,” and that “combined with institutional incentives that encourage pilotis, piloti-style parking becomes the norm.” A piloti is a ground level left open, demarcated only by columns without walls; in multi-unit and multi-family housing, it is mostly used as parking space.
Ground floors in low-rise residential areas began to be fully filled with parking starting in 2002. That was the year the ‘1 household, 1 parking space’ standard was applied to housing with exclusive areas of 1585㎡. To resolve severe parking shortages in each alley, the existing ‘3 households, 2 parking spaces (set based on 0.7 vehicles per household)’ rule was tightened.
Incentives were also introduced. Because excavating for underground parking is costly, when the first floor was made into a piloti-style parking area, developers were allowed to add another floor to make up the units that could not be placed on the ground floor. This is the backdrop for the rapid spread of typical inner-city villas with only columns on the first floor and walls enclosing the upper floors starting from the second floor.
In contrast, in Japan, when purchasing a vehicle, a parking space must be within 2㎞ of the home. This not only suppresses demand for vehicle purchases, but even if one buys a car, one can find a place to park outside the house, so there is no compelling reason to reduce other floor area inside the house to provide parking. This is why many private services exist, such as parking towers shared by multiple households.
The team also found other background factors beyond parking. In an email interview with the Kyunghyang Shinmun, Professor Nam emphasized, “the impact of the parking system is large, but what creates differences beyond that is landscaping.”
The researchers selected Nonhyeon-dong in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and Nakameguro in Meguro Ward, Tokyoareas with similar conditions such as land prices, access to the city center, floor area ratio and building coverage ratio, zoning, and street widthand compared them.
As a result, while Korea’s landscaping regulations merely require securing a certain area, Japan’s more detailed rules induce a richer variety of landscaping.
A representative example is that, in Meguro Ward, for residential buildings, landscaping is required along at least 60% of the length where the building meets the alley. If the building frontage is 10ｍ, then 6ｍ or more must be filled with trees or plants.
In particular, the team found that allowing landscaping at various heightsfrom the semi-basement up to the second floor above groundto count toward the 60% standard makes greenery appear more diverse. The team wrote, “(In Meguro Ward, a building’s landscaped areas) are recognized based on whether they are perceived from the street (alley) and contribute to the street environment.”
By comparison, Korea’s landscaping standards are relatively monotonous. To begin with, there is effectively no rule that compels tree planting along a certain length of the dwelling frontage. Although each building must plant trees and flowers above a certain area, in many cases they are not visible to people walking along the alley.
In the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport notice ‘Landscaping Standards,’ there is a rule stating, ‘On a lot larger than 2000㎡ that faces a road wider than 0ｍ, 20% of the landscaped area must be placed along the roadside.’
However, this generally does not apply to low-rise residential areas located in ‘alleys.’ The back streets in low-rise residential areas are typically 48ｍ wide, and it is rare for the lot area used to build multi-unit or multi-family housing to exceed 2000㎡.
In Seoul, under the Seoul Building Ordinance, as long as the minimum-area rule‘if you build a building with a total floor area of less than 1000㎡ on a lot larger than 200㎡, the landscaped area must be at least 5% of the lot area’is met, that is sufficient.
The team concluded that, unlike Tokyo, because Seoul does not specify in detail where trees must be planted, there is a tendency to secure the landscaped area somewhere inside the lot rather than along the alley edge.
Rules on plantings also had an effect. In Meguro Ward, the minimum width of planting space can vary20㎝, 40㎝, 1ｍ, etc.depending on the height of the tree. In contrast, the Seoul Metropolitan Government sets the minimum width at 1ｍ regardless of the size or species of tree. If 1ｍ must always be secured, it can block the passage of cars and people, making it difficult to plant even small trees in front of buildings.
The researchers concluded that if regulations that uniformly present only minimum numbers for the number of parking spaces or the landscaped area are revised, the environment of low-rise residential districts can also be improved. In other words, it is possible to shift from ground floors filled with piloti parking to low-rise residential areas where diverse greenery continues along the alleys.
Professor Nam also pointed out that most building and landscaping rules are designed for large-scale projects along major roads, even though small-scale back streets and alleys are far more numerous and lack sufficient relevant regulations.
He said on the 4th, “For low-rise residential areas, there is no need to choose only between large-scale redevelopment and maintaining the current state. We should establish careful standards to tend the small buildings and alleys that make up the majority, and ensure that small changes to individual buildings raise the quality of entire alleys.”
