Skyscraper Apartments Becoming Popular

Recently, the number of skyscraper apartments with more than forty floors has been increasing. There are five of these skyscraper apartment complexes either fully constructed or under construction at present, including Daelim Construction Co’s “Acroville” in Dogokdong, Hyundai Construction’s “Seocho Superville” (which will be completed in October, 2003) and Kumho Construction’s “Richensia,” which will be accepting residents later this year. Samsung Construction’s “Tower Palace III” and Hyundai Industrial Development’s “I-Park” in Samsungdong will follow suit in May, 2004. Most new apartment buildings currently under construction have 40 floors or more.

Hyundai Construction has already built “Mokdong Hyperion II (403 housing units)” and “Busan Haewundae Hyperion (112 units),” which both have more than forty floors. Daewoo Construction’s “Trumph World Centum (564 units),” that was completed in April this year, has 37 floors.

Why the rush to build skyscraper apartments? A major reason behind this action can be attributed to construction companies’ excessive desire to show off their technological abilities.

The companies in question include Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo, Daelim, Kumho and Lotte, all famous business groups in the Korean construction industry. These companies are all trying to build these landmark apartment complexes in order to use them as a source of business promotion and advertisement.

Yet the appearance of high-story apartment buildings can also be seen as a way to resolve a chronic lack of residents in metropolitan areas such as Seoul and Busan. Moreover, people are increasingly inclined to demand a more comfortable residence with better outside views than has traditionally been offered to those seeking an apartment. Professor Shin Sung-woo of Hanyang University’s Construction Department has said, “We can expect Korea to build more and more high-story residence buildings in big cities in the next decade, as is now being done in other countries like America and Japan.”

Shortcomings = However, high-story apartment complexes currently being built have several shortcomings, the first of which being that they do not have enough evacuation facilities. Park Chang-kyu, a senior executive at Seohan Construction, has said, “In advanced nations, high-story buildings are supposed to have an evacuation system for every twenty stories. But, in Korea, construction companies are not setting up these facilities, with the excuse that there is no relevant regulation in the law. As a result, there is some worry that if a large fire were to break out in one of these complexes there could be severe damage done. Regulations on equipping high-story buildings with other essential facilities, such as a lightning rod and a smoke control device, are also needed. Expensive distribution prices for these high-level apartments are also problematic. Most of them are criticized for their exorbitant prices even though they are located in districts with commercial value.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com