Abstract
The urban housing development in Korea, which is disconnected to local environment and urban fabric, has created many problems. For sustainable city, it is important to integrate the urban publicity, in which condition the housing can be connected to the urban fabric and to the local community. Steven Holl has a discourse on creating a new typology of architecture in the city of 21st century with 'porosity' concept. This study is focused on meaning and application of Holl's porosity in the urban housing projects. For the comprehensive understanding of porosity concept, I studied on theoretical connection between Steven Holl's porosity and the porosity of Walter Benjamin who studied on modern urban complex in the early 20th century. The architectural features of Benjamin's porosity are categorized into the 'indetermination of the boundary', 'variability of social space' and 'montage-image'. Based on that, three of Steven Holl's urban housing projects are analysed in this study. Despite of difference of time period, the architectural features of Benjamin' porosity is equivalent to Steven Holl's approach with porosity concept. And further more, Steven Holl's porosity concept is integrated with his phenomenological methodology and he provide an alternative of modern architecture for sustainable city.