Commercial architecture project presentations these days are pretty much REVIT models and high gloss CG renderings and animations. Little artistic soul remains. For a brief two week stint near Brooklyn’s Industry City, Seoul-based Byoung Soo Cho Architects presented an array of project sketches, paintings and handmade models that show work made by humans instead of software.

The Low Land presented by Thomas Park occupied one of the upstairs spaces within the ArtCake gallery. The main components of the exhibition are a series of suspended plywood form study models and a large low table filled with sketches, models, design publications and ceramic vessels. It’s what you might find wandering around the office of an architectural firm, presented here in an orderly composition. There’s a humbleness to all the work shown here, a search for reduction and simplicity.

Cho made news earlier in 2025 with the completion of a first project in Europe for Milan design week. Instead of designing a pavilion or furniture collection, Cho installed a red gravel floor in the 17th-century courtyard of Palazzo Litta. Visitors could walk barefoot and lie down creating a meditative connection with a natural material within a man-made environment.

Full Description

Thomas Park presents The Low Land, a solo exhibition of architect Byoung Soo Cho, hosted at ArtCake in Sunset Park, New York Centering on his seminal work Earth House, the exhibition offers an in-depth look at the architectural inquiry Cho has pursued throughout his career. His architecture rooted in the ground and unfolding from it has developed around the Taoist principles of “lowness” and “emptiness,” articulating a sustained exploration of the relationship between land and human life. The exhibition features sketches, objects, conceptual models, and publications produced during the design of Earth House, as well as works such as the “I-shaped House,, Jipyeong House, and the Southcape Hotel in Namhae.

Photos and Text: Dave Pinter

Additional Text: Thomas Park