I thought I would throw in a few pictures of our house in Seoul. The photo below is of the gate. The house is tucked away in an unlikely location up a hill past a church and down a hill. We've actually got enough space to park about 6 or 7 cars which is almost unheard of. The only reason we don't have problems with parking "squatters" is that the location is so obscure. In spite of this, we are very near the Han river, the Yongsan army base, etc.
The next picture is inside the gate. The owners (who are retired and live in a "satellite city" outside Seoul) were dedicated to the gardening and landscaping. This is the front door which is effectively at the East end of the house. Note the various surface materials. Korean houses tend to contain a lot of different materials on the exterior. This one has brick, concrete, two different types of stone and two different wood surfaces in addition to the tile roof. It all works together reasonably well on this house. Others are not so successful.
This photo shows the South facing side of the house. For energy savings, privacy, or views, many houses have all the exterior views on only one or two sides. This house has no windows on the West side and almost none on the North or East sides. With the overhangs it works well to get sun in the winter without too much heat in the summer. The large deck on the first floor hangs over a large fish pond which is no longer functional. The second floor also has a very large deck.
This last picture is an early spring picture looking back from the Southwest corner of the yard. From here you can see the skylights in the overhang above the deck.
