This project can be seen as a precursor to the “Mending Walls” project, addressing many of the same issues, such as balanced asymmetry, dissolution of boundaries, and unity over division, but on a residential scale. While the Center for Divided Families is meant for large family reunion events, the reunification house was conceived for a more intimate reunion between members of a single family divided between North and South Korea.

The first site for the reunification house would be where the Military Demarcation Line hits the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. The house would sit exactly on the border, the primary view facing the ocean, with stair entries on each side, which bring the visitors up to join on the first landing, and then up another flight to arrive at the entry of the house. The house is arranged as a balanced asymmetrical composition, with sleeping areas closest to the ground, dining and indoor communal areas in the center, and outdoor communal areas on a roof garden.

In looking at Hejduk’s Wall House, the seed of an idea for the reunification house can be seen. The Wall House deals very elegantly with certain basic issues within the concept of a dwelling: earth, sky, fire, water, progression, penetration. The wall in elevation becomes ground or walk in plan. Rooms in elevation become sky in plan. The earth and sky in drawings become ambiguous, but the drawing was the key in bringing forth this ambiguity. In the reunification house, one aim was to explore these same ambiguities, but in a way which resembles more closely some earlier Corbusian folly studies.