Photo: New areas of South Korea. Would you like to live like this? Building Korea

Recently I flew to Oceania through South Korea, and I had a couple of days to walk around Seoul and Incheon. This is one of the largest cities in Korea, its rapid growth began in the mid-90's, and until now every day there is something new. Now Koreans implement the project "Smart City Songdo" - it will be a large environmentally clean and highly automated area in the port area, but it is not yet completed. But Incheon is a great place to see how Koreans build modern housing.

Koreans have a peculiar approach to housing. It seems to us from the outside that they are simply adopting everything from Americans, Europeans and Japanese, but that's not entirely true. For example, Koreans believe that it's very cool and prestigious ... to live in an anthill houses! Yes, yes, this is not one-story America with its endless suburbs and not the London neighborhoods of townhouses.

But, on the other hand, it's not Parnassus and Murino: another quality of housing, a different attitude to public spaces. Of the total, only the height of buildings and a rather high density of construction, but in Korea there is very little land. The density of population in Seoul is 16 626 people / sq. M. Kilometer, in St. Petersburg - 3764 people. Do you feel the difference?

01. View of Incheon. Everywhere something is being built. In some places there are wastelands, but they do not stay long.

02. Housing in Incheon is built in blocks. The Korean residential complex is high-rise buildings standing along the perimeter of the block. Perhaps most of all Korean new buildings are similar to American apartment buildings, even with some features of co-ops. But otherwise - the usual microdistricts. For their designation in the Korean language there is a special word - "apathy". Most likely, this is a distorted English local "apartment", although there is a version that the Koreans borrowed this word from the French. This is a universal term: the word "apathy" is also called a microdistrict, and a multi-storey house in this microdistrict, and an apartment in this house.

There are three different "apatkhs" along the street.

 03. Here is a typical Incheon quarter-apatkhy. Usually "apatkhy" is a neighborhood of several houses (they are somewhere from 5 to 15) with a common territory, closed from the rest of the world.

Houses are usually built at the same time, rather than "queues."

04. There are no cleanly sleeping areas in Incheon, because between the quarters of "apatkhy" they can build office and other public buildings.

06. Some were lucky: their residential complex goes directly to the park with a lake.

 07. You most likely saw a clip for the song Gangnam Style. This clip is dedicated to a lifestyle in the style of Seoul Gangnam District. Something like the way Moscow majors used to sing an arenby about Rublevka. Only Gannamgu basically consists not of mansions and cottages, namely from "apathy".

That is, Korean nouveaux riche settles in an unsightly high-rise building (in architectural terms, they usually do not stand out), and this is not considered shameful. On the contrary, this underlines the status of the buyer of such housing. Even if the house does not belong to the elite class of real estate, it is sometimes more prestigious to live in an apartment in a high-rise building within the boundaries of Seoul than in a cottage outside of it. The same can be said about Incheon, which many in general tend to consider part of Seoul.

08. In general, if you are a Korean and live in your own house or apartment in a house where there are less than 10 floors (they are called "yonlip"), then you are so small. Really cool guys live in such high-rise buildings.

09. The park goes directly to the sea

10. The first floors on the street side are always "live", there will be shops, cafes, offices, fitness centers, laundries, medical offices and so on.

South Korea tallest building

13. Gate at the entrance to one of the blocks. At the entrance is necessarily sitting concierge, he is also an important guard who can also perform the functions of the manager. At night, the door to the "apathea" closes, and if you came home late, the Important Watcher will eat your brain. He also makes sure that the cars of strangers do not park in the courtyard. The territory is always fenced, inside the block you get through the gate or gate. And sometimes there is no entrance to the yard: the cars immediately fall on the underground parking lot.

14. There he is. You can leave the car either here or on the street, where there is a short-term guest parking.

15. Yard. It can be seen that there is not a single parked car here. But this is the peculiarity of the new "apathy". In the old (and old here are considered houses that are 20 or more years old), all the yards are parked, because there were no large underground parking lots then.

Yards in Korean cities before just rolled into the asphalt, a lawn or the more a large tree you could meet rarely. Sometimes right under the windows of "apatkhy" there come mini-ogorodiki, where Korean grandmothers grow Korean carrots. But gradually the Koreans also began to realize that a lot of greenery and playgrounds are good, so that in new areas the chance to settle in a house with a sanitized territory is higher.

16. Koreans pay much attention to improvement, and they often have a slant in landscape design. When decorating yards are used all kinds of stones, rocks, fountains, streams, hills, trees. In this case, the trees are already planted large.

17. Only special vehicles can go to the entrances, for this purpose, along the houses there are wide passages. Of course, they are always free: parking is prohibited, for this there is an underground parking. In the same photo it is seen that the trees, although young, but height already up to the 4th floor.

18. An example of improvement Korea

19. This is a children's pool. Now it's still cold, and it's empty, but closer to summer it is filled, and the children here splash freely.

22. Another children's pool, this time indoor. Bicycles children throw freely where they want.

23. Kindergarten on the territory of the quarter

24. There is even a zone for camping: you can pit a tent right in your yard)

25. Bicycle paths

26. Entrance to one of the entrances. The doors are transparent, the entrance is made to level with the sidewalk, tactile tiles are laid to the place - everything is like in Europe.

27. Postcards in which the courier from the delivery service can leave your order. Very cool.

28. In the halls there is usually a small public area, like a lobby in hotels. Here you can meet some guest who does not really want to let him into his apartment - the same courier.

30. There are bicycles here, they usually are not riveted to anything. As I already wrote, in South Korea there is practically no street crime. Even just on the street, thefts are quite rare, and within the closed quarter they are almost unbelievable.

31. Sales office of one of the new districts. Here is a model of "apathea".

32. It's funny that at the entrance to the sales office you need to take off your shoes and put on slippers.) In Korean apartments, too, everyone goes without shoes - this is another difference from America. And the zone where it is necessary to remove shoes, usually allocated a special deepening, height difference or just a high threshold.

34. The quarter is elevated one level above the road. Parking is hidden below, and above it are public areas.

36. There are 93 square meters. Meter, there are 84 square meters. Meter. Another difference between the Incheon high-rise building from St. Petersburg is that in a normal "apatthy" house you will never be offered a 20 sq. M. Hotel room instead of an apartment. Meters, as Russian builders like to do. For example, in the 90s most houses were rented with apartments of more than 75 square meters. Meters. Now the choice has become wider. There are apartments less than 50 square meters. Meters, there are under 300, but in general it is a good living space, not a cat's cages. On the other hand, in the area of ​​the apartment, Koreans can include everything, for example, a balcony or even a car place, so this should be taken into account when buying.

 Previously, the entrance to the apartment "apathy" was done outside the house, from the gallery, which encircled the high-rise building (approximately as in motels). Gradually, the Koreans moved to a more familiar pattern for us and now go home from the stairwell.

37. All apartments are fully furnished, but unfurnished. Household appliances are sometimes immediately included in the cost of an apartment, sometimes not, then how to arrange. You can also choose one of the examples of the interior, you will immediately be made the same, and you will enter the finished product.

39. This is part of the smart home system. From here you can call the concierge, answer the intercom, adjust the climate and lighting.

41. There is an elevator call directly from the apartment. While you lace up your shoes, you call an elevator, you leave the apartment, and he is already waiting for you. And also the computer can show, after how much the lift will come. During peak hours, when everyone goes to work, the elevator can wait about five minutes. Very convenient when you do not want to waste your time.

43. Rooms in Korean apartments are usually small, except for the hall, which is simultaneously a living room, dining room and kitchen.

45. The rest of the rooms are called bedrooms, but there may not be beds as such, because many Koreans still prefer to sleep on the floor.

47. Only half of the Koreans own apartments, despite the relatively low mortgage rates (there are several categories, but they are all below 5%). Here, the high cost of an apartment, and the mobility of the population play a role. The cost per square meter of housing in the usual Seoul sleeping area (prestigious) starts at $ 3500 per square meter. Meter, and in the same Gannamga apartments are consistently worth more than $ 1 million.

It is clear that for local rich people this is not a problem, but often Koreans prefer to rent an apartment. This is also not cheap: in addition to the monthly payment, you still leave the owner of the apartment a mortgage, from which he receives interest in the bank. When you move out, new tenants return to you. But the problem is that the amount of collateral can reach an impressive amount. That is, you can give more than $ 50,000 for an apartment that does not belong to you, into the hands of someone you do not even know.

Previously, this scheme was more popular and more radical. The amount of the deposit was even greater (up to 70% of the cost of the apartment), but there was no monthly rent: the owner of the real estate simply received a large percentage of the collateral.