IYAGI CONVERSATIONS
IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT


BRYAN KIM

















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IYAGI is Korean for CONVERSATION.

Conversation is the exchange of ideas, information, and emotions between two entities. In architecture, conversations manifest as dynamic interactions across multiple scales, from materiality to urbanism.

Listed projects serve as mediators that integrate diverse scales (human / non-human) into a cohesive whole. They shape conversations between users, materials, spaces, urban lives, and environments, fostering a dynamic built environment. Through design, buildings shape their context, facilitating dialogues between past and present, tradition and innovation, the built and the organic.

These ongoing interactions ensure that architecture remains a living, responsive medium—one that continuously negotiates relationships between people, places, and the external forces that shape them. Therefore, my projects are not merely static objects but active participants of an ever-evolving conversation in our built environment.











conversations with  
 1. The City
2. The Water
3. The Heat
4. The Wood

HYDROFLUX

conversations with the water
  • Fall 2025

  • Instructor: Dan Spiegel
  • Collaborator: Kyra Johnston



Hydroflux embodies the concept of reflecting time through a large floating element that responds to tides and rising sea levels.

This floating piston element, integrated within a structure that bridges over the water and rests gracefully on sculpted landforms on either side, contrasts the permanence of the bridge with the temporality of its habitable, moving component. Attached to this floating element are red gallery rooms that not only educate visitors on the impacts of sea level rise but also allow them to experience it physically as the building shifts up and down with the sea level changes.

The elevated programs within the building, including restaurants offering sweeping views of San Francisco, spacious arrival halls, and diverse retail spaces, interact seamlessly with these dynamic gallery spaces. Accessible via gangways, these nooks connected to the floating piston harmonize with changing sea levels, creating a unique and immersive experience for visitors.







The inspiration of hydroflux rather comes from a banal object commonly seen in waterfront areas: the donut fender. The coexistence of a fixed component and a mobile component is what hydroflux conveys at a building scale.

Reflecting daily tidal changes of a maximum of 7’, the building is comprised of two components, a fixed permanent element and a floating impermanent element.

Hydroflux establishes a relationship between an object in flux constantly interacting with a stationary object. This creates experiences that are never the same for users.



 


Integrated Design Studio | Drawing Package