Hana Bank's Nowon building, HANA NEST+, introduces time for care, work, gathering, and rest into the spaces where traditional bank functions are gradually fading away. Within its curved concrete frames, different scenes of daily life are stacked layer by layer.

The days of queuing at a bank for deposits and transfers have almost disappeared. What, then, should remain in bank buildings? For a long time, banks have occupied the center of cities. People visited banks to deposit and borrow money, and the branches were the most familiar places where the street met finance. However, now that not only deposits and transfers but also loans and wealth management are handled via smartphones, constructing large buildings solely for banks is no longer a given. The Hana Bank Nowon building began precisely from this question: what should fill the space left behind by reduced banking operations?

The area around Nowon Station is a lifestyle hub in northeastern Seoul, densely packed with banks, commercial facilities, academies, and large apartment complexes. The people passing through this area are students, parents, office workers, and local residents before they are bank customers. To accommodate their varying schedules within a single building, the new space houses not just a financial branch, but also an open lounge, a daycare center, affiliate offices, and a restaurant. A single-purpose bank building has transformed into a place that embraces multiple dimensions of daily life.

The name HANA NEST+ originates from this concept. NEST stands for ‘Neighborhood Exchange for Support and Trust.’ The word "nest" is not a metaphor for the building's shape, but rather signifies the way spaces of different natures lean on one another to form a single cohesive place. A lounge connected to the street sits at the bottom, followed by spaces for childcare, finance, work, and dining above. While each floor is independent, they are grouped together in twos or threes through stairs, voids, and terraces. The first thing that catches the eye in this building is the strong form of its stacked concrete. It differs from both old banks that displayed stability through stone and arches, and modern office buildings entirely clad in glass. Although wrapped in heavy concrete, the bottom of each floor is carved into concave curves, and the glass surfaces are set back to create terraces and deep shade. As slanted concrete surfaces overlap with smooth curves, the exterior serves not merely as a decoration but as a framework that creates actual space. From afar, it looks like a single large, solid mass, but as you approach, windows, terraces, and spots for people to linger are revealed one by one. The sense of trust required of a financial building is preserved, but its heaviness is transformed not into an overwhelming authority, but into a depth that embraces various lifestyles.

The lower levels overturn the familiar face of a traditional bank. Instead of putting the branch at the forefront, an open lounge is situated on the first and second floors, drawing the flow of the street indoors through a large arch. The height difference caused by the parking ramp is not hidden. The variations in floor level become stairs and seats, creating a three-dimensional internal topography that connects multiple floors. Someone visits the bank, another waits for a friend, and yet another sits down for a brief rest. A lobby once passed through for a single purpose becomes a place where multiple uses intersect. Thanks to the repeating concrete frames, the 15-story building does not appear as just one tall block. As the glass facade recedes inward on each floor to form terraces, places for people to stay are created throughout the building. On the lower floors, a lounge connected to the street opens up; on the middle floors, times for care, consultation, and work continue; and on the upper floors, dining scenes unfold overlooking the city and Bukhansan Mountain. The same curves are repeated, but the landscapes and uses contained within them differ from floor to floor.

While financial transactions are increasingly moving onto screens, consultations, care, work, dining, waiting, and meeting cannot fit inside a screen. HANA NEST+ does not exaggerate the shrinking branch area into a larger symbol. Instead, it brings the hours of life that previously existed outside the bank into the building, binding those scenes within the layers and shadows of concrete. Rather than repeating the fading format of a traditional branch, it demonstrates through architecture why a physical financial building is once again necessary in the city.