To modern urban single dwellers, other people’s company is often readily given up for the sake of privacy, but this privacy easily turns to solitude, a sense of being cut off from the rest of the world.

“What if there were a loose boundary zone between myself and the outside world?” is a question that a group of young architects have started to ask themselves recently.

Eventually, they zeroed in on the concept of a share house ― an idea that has evolved from the conventional format of just sharing a house.

“Most houses are built on the premise that people will eventually live in family units, which is not necessarily the case in modern society,” architect Kim Min-cheol told The Korea Herald in an interview.

“We believe that a person’s living space does and should reflect his or her lifestyle, so we start by designing a space in which people may reach out to others without neglecting their privacy.”

Kim is one of the three co-heads of Seoul Social Standard, a budding architecture design startup specializing in share house design and management.

SSS currently operates a number of share houses in Seoul, including the Tongui-dong House in Tongui-dong near Gwanghwamun and With Something in Yeoksam-dong.

“If building a house is referred to as the hardware of architecture, what we do with these share houses is to program the running software,” Kim said.

“In the case of ‘‘With Something,” the operational enterprise Boundaries Architects would be our hardware partner. In the Tongui-dong House project, we co-worked with the Junglim Foundation.”

For instance, a regular house would have a bathroom that comprises of a toilet, washstand, and a bathtub or shower booth but this comprehensive format would not be so well-suited for share house residents, especially in the weekday morning hours, Kim explained.

“One of the solutions was to break down the general bathroom and to separate the shower space and the toilet, so that users may use each respective function without disturbing others,” he said.

The Tongui-dong and Yeoksam-dong share houses are both characterized by a large living room and kitchen, as well as a cafeteria which may be used for social gathering after closing hours.

“Without such communal space, our share houses would not be much different from one-room studios,” said Kim Ha-na, another co-head of SSS.

People may enjoy total privacy once they step into their room but in these common areas, they may interact with others and experience daily home activities such as watching television in the living room or cooking in the kitchen, she explained.

“Everybody needs an intermediary zone between one’s private space and the outside world,” both Kims said.

“This is what we call a loose boundary, a place where one may be alone yet coexist with others; a haven where one may feel at home.”

Details of the SSS-operated share houses may be found on the website 3siot.org.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)