As Seoul emerges as a global cultural capital, architecture has begun to tell more intimate stories of restraint, tranquility, and reinterpretation. Perched atop Lotte World Tower, Seoul’s tallest building, Layered Seoul unfolds as a profound reflection on space, light, and material memory. Designed by Studio Listen Communication, this private residence delicately blends Korean heritage with a contemporary sensibility, rejecting the glamour of vertical opulence. Instead, it presents something much more refined: a multilayered narrative. Every surface is intentionally designed. Plaster, natural stone, warm wood, and soft linen are combined with soft natural light to create a space that feels more like a haven in the clouds than a penthouse. Rather than celebrating the grandeur of height, it is restrained. There is no need for ostentation or excessive decoration. The materials breathe, absorb, and reflect the passage of time. Light moves gently along textured walls and brushed surfaces, echoing the rhythms of nature far below. This philosophy is not new to Listen Communication. The studio has received international acclaim as the first Korean interior designer to win the Prix Versailles Prize, the highest award in the hotel category at UNESCO’s The World Architecture Design Awards in Paris. The award-winning The Hanok Heritage House has been praised for its design that combines modern hospitality, cultural memory, and ecological elegance. Layered SEOUL continues this trend. Rather than simply occupying a space in one of Asia’s tallest buildings, it transforms the space. It asks questions about how high-rise living can feel slow, steady, and meaningful. And it answers those questions by creating a home that is tactile, timeless, and deeply Korean. In an era when Korean influence extends beyond technology and entertainment to design, craft, and architecture, projects like Layered SEOUL suggest a new direction in which quiet luxury, cultural depth, and spatial poetry define the future of Korean living.
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