A stairway public library in a hillside Korean neighbourhood: one of the long steep concrete stairways typical of old hillside districts, its side walls fitted with weatherproof book alcoves and small reading nooks with benches at each landing, warm lights coming on at dusk. Residents climbing past, one person sitting reading. Corrugated roofs and tangled wires around

A greenhouse built inside an abandoned Seoul subway station: the platform and tracks converted into raised planting beds thick with ferns and vegetables, grow lights hanging from the tunnel ceiling where the catenary used to run, condensation on the old tiled walls, the original station name sign still mounted and legible above the greenery

A village built across the rooftops of a Korean apartment complex: small houses, vegetable plots, laundry lines and narrow alleys occupying the flat roofs of five adjacent towers, connected by slender footbridges spanning between buildings. Residents chatting, a dog, potted peppers. The ordinary city visible far below. Late afternoon, entirely plausible and lived-in

A record shop inside a hanok: a traditional Korean wooden house with paper doors slid open, the interior fitted with floor-to-ceiling vinyl record crates along the wooden walls, a turntable and tube amplifier on a low floor table, cushions instead of chairs. The courtyard visible through the open doors with a persimmon tree. Warm lamp light on aged wood

A reading pavilion built along a mountain ridge in Korea: a narrow timber and concrete structure following the spine of the ridge for a hundred meters, one long glass wall opening to a sea of layered blue mountains and morning cloud below. Bookshelves line the opposite solid wall. Hikers' boots at the entrance. Traditional Korean roof proportions abstracted into modern form

A night market suspended under a Korean highway overpass: food stalls, plastic stools and strings of bulbs hung from the concrete underside of the elevated road, the market occupying the leftover space between support columns. Steam, red plastic chairs, handwritten menu boards. Traffic rumbling overhead. Warm chaotic light against raw grey concrete

A floating public library moored on the Han River in Seoul: a long low structure of glass and pale timber on a wide pontoon, reading room walls entirely glazed so shelves and warm lamps are visible from the water. A gangway to the riverside park. Joggers, Seoul apartment towers and a bridge behind. Blue hour, warm interior light spilling onto the water

An observatory built into a rice terrace in rural Korea: a low concrete dome emerging from the flooded paddies, its curved roof mirrored in the water alongside the sky, narrow raised paths leading to it between the terraces. A farmer walking one of the paths at dusk. The dome's slit open toward the darkening sky

A bathhouse carved into a coastal cliff on the Korean east coast: steaming stone pools cut into the rock face at several levels, open to the sea, wooden walkways and handrails connecting them, steam drifting off the water into cold air. Waves breaking on the rocks directly below the lowest pool. Winter dawn

A 24-hour public bathhouse built on the second floor of a city bus terminus building in Korea, photographed at 5:40am in winter. Below, six city buses stand nose-in at the turnaround with their interior lights on and a driver hosing down a windscreen. Above them the bathhouse windows run the whole length of the facade, fogged from the inside, with three small circles wiped clear where someone has looked out; warm yellow light and a faint haze of steam leak through. A vertical sign on the corner reads in Hangul and a rolled-up shutter shows a taped paper notice. Wet asphalt reflecting the bus headlights, a stack of plastic crates, bare ginkgo trees. Ordinary weathered tile and painted steel, an entirely plausible and lived-in building — real documentary architectural photography, not a render, not a concept illustration. No real company logo, no real brand name, no trademark.

One long section of an underground shopping arcade in Seoul converted into a walking greenhouse. The original terrazzo floor and the arcade's mirrored support columns are kept, but the shop units on both sides are now planting beds — ferns, rubber plants, small citrus trees — growing right up to the walkway edge. A row of skylights cut into the ceiling drops shafts of pale daylight onto the floor, supplemented by grow lights on the old fluorescent rails. Condensation on the tiled walls. Three elderly people walking slowly for exercise, one with hands behind the back; a woman sitting on a bench reading. The arcade's original directional signage in Hangul is still bolted to the ceiling above the greenery. Damp air, faint mist near the floor. Documentary photograph of a real place in daily use — not abandoned, no peeling paint, no dust. No real company logo, no real brand name.

A short two-cabin gondola lift connecting a steep hillside apartment complex in a Korean provincial city to the subway station at the bottom of the hill, photographed on an overcast afternoon in late autumn. Two small red cabins, the size of a delivery van, hang from a single cable that runs over three slim white pylons planted between the apartment towers. The upper station is a plain concrete platform bolted onto the corner of the complex's shopping annex, with a rubber-matted ramp, a bicycle rack, and a queue of four residents carrying grocery bags and a folded stroller. Laundry on the apartment balconies, a persimmon tree, a hand-painted parking line on the slope below. Utilitarian municipal infrastructure — plain steel, bolted joints, scuffed paint — not a tourist attraction, not futuristic. Real documentary photography, entirely plausible. No real company logo, no real brand name.

An outdoor foot-bath terrace at a Korean expressway service area, photographed at dusk. A long shallow stone channel of steaming hot water runs 15 metres along the back edge of the truck parking lot, with a continuous wooden bench on one side. Seven people sit with trousers rolled to the knee and feet in the water — mostly middle-aged truck drivers, one still holding a paper coffee cup, one asleep against the railing, a couple with a small dog on a leash. Shoes and socks lined up neatly behind the bench. Steam rising into cold air, orange sodium lamps on tall poles, articulated lorries parked in rows behind, a vending machine glowing at the end of the terrace. Wet dark stone, a drain grille, a cheap plastic sign in Hangul on a post. Utterly ordinary roadside infrastructure, worn and practical. Real documentary photography, entirely plausible. No real company logo, no real brand name.

The single shop of a small Korean island village that is simultaneously a convenience store, a post office and a pharmacy, photographed from the road at midday. One low whitewashed building with a corrugated blue roof. Above the door, three separate hand-painted signboards are bolted side by side in a row, each a different colour and age, reading exactly in Hangul: the leftmost sign reads "우체국", the middle sign reads "약국", the right sign reads "슈퍼". Inside the open doorway a single counter serves all three — a scale and parcel tape at one end, a glass medicine cabinet in the middle, shelves of instant noodles and drinks at the other. An old woman leans on the counter; a cat sleeps on a stack of cardboard. A red postbox and a plastic chair outside, drying peppers on a mat, the sea visible past a low stone wall. Sun-bleached paint, sagging wires. Real documentary photography, entirely plausible and lived-in. The Hangul text must be spelled exactly as given. No real company logo, no real brand name.

A public open-air swimming pool floating on the Han river, moored in the span between two piers of a road bridge, photographed just after sunset in midsummer. The pool is a plain rectangular pontoon deck with a 25-metre lane pool and a shallow paddling end, edged by a steel handrail and blue rubber matting. Underwater lights turn the water pale turquoise, and that glow throws moving ripple patterns onto the concrete underside of the bridge deck above. Twenty or so swimmers and families; a lifeguard on a plastic chair; towels over the railing; a stack of kickboards. Beyond the bridge, the city skyline is a low band of warm windows and cool neon reflected in the black river. Traffic light-trails on the bridge overhead. Municipal, practical, slightly worn — not a luxury resort. Real documentary photography, entirely plausible. No real company logo, no real brand name.

A city bus terminus on the rooftop of a 1970s provincial Korean department store, photographed in flat afternoon light. Four green-and-white city buses are parked in a fan on the roof deck, one pulling away down a wide spiral ramp that wraps the outside of the building. A small waiting shelter with a curved plastic roof, wooden benches, a route map board, and a metal pole with paper timetables taped to it. Rooftop clutter left in place: water tanks, an old neon frame stripped of its tubes, a caged staircase head, painted deck lines faded to pink. Passengers waiting with shopping bags; a driver smoking by the parapet; pigeons. Low city rooflines all around, mountains in the haze. Sun-faded paint, rust streaks, patched waterproofing. Real documentary photography of an ordinary working place. No real company logo, no real brand name.

An unstaffed single-platform railway halt standing in the middle of flooded rice paddies in the Korean countryside, photographed in early evening in June. One narrow concrete platform about 40 metres long, a small open shelter with a tiled roof and two benches, a single fluorescent lamp just coming on, and a white enamel station nameplate on a post. There is no station building, no fence, no car park — the rice comes right up to the platform edge on both sides, young green shoots standing in water that mirrors the pink and grey sky. A single narrow farm track leads away to a distant cluster of houses. One person waits on the bench with a bicycle leaned against the shelter. Overhead line masts marching into the distance. Damp air, mosquitoes near the lamp. Real documentary photography, entirely plausible, ordinary rural infrastructure. No real company logo, no real brand name.

A twenty-seat neighbourhood cinema fitted into an empty unit on the third floor of an ordinary Korean apartment-complex shopping block, photographed from the back row before a screening. The room is small and obviously a converted shop: the original suspended ceiling grid and one boxed-in structural column are still there, the window wall is covered with heavy dark curtains that do not quite meet, and a thin blade of daylight falls across the floor. Five rows of mismatched secondhand cinema seats in red and blue, a modest screen on the far wall, a small projector on a shelf bolted above the door. A folding table by the entrance with a rice cooker, paper cups and a handwritten programme sheet in Hangul taped to the wall. Nine people seated, one taking off a coat. Warm dim light, worn carpet tiles, a fire extinguisher. Real documentary photography of a modest, lived-in place. No real company logo, no real brand name.