About
fakeprintshop is a Seoul-based studio working at the edge between architectural design and spatial fabrication. We design buildings, exhibitions, and brand environments, and we build them with the same hands that drew them. The studio is small by design. Most projects pass through the same set of eyes from first site visit to final installation, which is the only way we know to keep an idea intact across the long distance between a sketch and a finished room.
Rance trained as an architect at AA school and worked at Arch166, CNP Engineering, JAIA, MRA, and NEX Architecture before starting fakeprintshop in 2025. The practice grew out of a specific frustration: that architectural ideas tend to lose their precision somewhere between the drawing and the wall. Most of Rance's work since has been an attempt to close that gap — through hands-on fabrication, through structural literacy, and through staying close to the build long after the design phase is conventionally over.
How we work We begin most projects by reading the site carefully — using Lidar scanning, drone mapping, and BIM not as marketing language but as ordinary tools, the way another studio might use a tape measure. The technology is in service of a slower question: what does this place already contain, and what does it want to become. From there we design, and then we build, with as little distance between those two phases as a project will allow.
Where we work Seoul, primarily. The city is in a particular moment — old fabric being rewritten quickly, new spaces being asked to carry cultural weight they weren't designed for — and most of our work responds to that condition directly. We take projects elsewhere when the brief earns the travel.
Meet the Founder
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Rance works between drawings, point clouds, and photographs — designing buildings, scanning them, writing about them, and archiving the spaces they leave behind. He is the director of Fakeprintshop, a Seoul-based studio for architectural design, research, and spatial archives, and Adjunct Professor of Architecture. Trained at the AA School in London, his fifteen years of practice move fluidly between private houses and embassies, supertall towers and cat cafés, peer-reviewed research and biennale exhibitions.
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2025 - Yuseong Farm (in progress)
2024 - Pocheon Cat Rescue Center and Cat Café (Arch166)
2023 - Shinhwa History Park Masterplan (Arch166)
2022 - Avocado Library (Arch166)
2021 - Sentbe Global Remittance Centre (Arch166)
2021 - Incheon National University Makerspace (Arch166)
2019 - Parc 1 Complex, Yeouido (CNP Engineering)
2018 - Hyundai Steel Iron Ore Storage Silo (CNP Engineering)
2017 - Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the United Kingdom (JAIA)
2016 - Lancaster Garden (JAIA)
2015 - Field End Road Residential Development (JAIA)
2014 - Porto Montenegro Marina Operations Building (MRA)
2013 - Richmond-upon-Thames Housing Project (MRA)
2012 - Cadogan Café, Duke of York Square, Chelsea (NEX Architecture)
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2025 - Collective Mass — Songeun Archive Room (Exhibition)
2015 - Urban Scene: Through the Eyes of Knowledge Infrastructure (Exhibition)
2015 - Architecture for the Discarded
2014 - City within a City
2013 - Vietnam Open Festival — Photographic Archive of Ho Chi Minh City
2012 - NEX: In the Making (Exhibition)
2011 - Ecclesial Anatomy — AA School (Exhibition)
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2024 - “Why Building Information Modeling Should be Practiced in a Small Architectural Office,” Review of Architecture and Building Science (Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea), Vol. 68, No. 5
2021 - “As-Built BIM Stages for Non-linear Design Building Management and Analysis,” Spring Conference of the Architectural Institute of Korea (AIK)
2019 - “Increasing Productivity through 3D Scan-to-BIM Automation,” Autumn Conference of the AIK
2019 - “3D Scanning Technology for Smart Maintenance of Super-Tall Buildings,” Journal of the Korean Association for Spatial Structures, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Feature Article)
2019 - “Engineering Applications in the Construction Phase Using High-Precision Survey Equipment (3D Laser Scanner, 3D Photo Scanner, Drone),” Spring Conference of the AIK
2019 - “Precise Investigation of Fire-Damaged Buildings through 3D Scanning,” Journal of the Korea Institute for Structural Maintenance and Inspection, Vol. 23, No. 1
2019 - “Point Cloud Data Coordination and Analysis for Sequential Deformation of Buildings,” Spring Conference of the AIK
2018 - “Real-BIM Construction Technology and Supplementary Considerations through 3D Scanning,” Review of Architecture and Building Science (Journal of the AIK), Vol. 62, No. 11
2018 - “Utilisation of 3D Scanner and BIM Data for the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Journal of the Korean Association for Spatial Structures, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Technical Article)
2018 - “Potential Effectiveness of 3D Scanning Algorithms for Real-BIM: Pre-Scanning and Post-Scanning Automation Algorithms,” Autumn Conference of the AIK
2018 - Research on Practical Technology Development for Overseas Super-Tall Buildings
2017 - Strategic Map Scanning for Residential Housing “Why Building Information Modeling Should be Practiced in a Small Architectural Office,” Review of Architecture and Building Science (Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea), Vol. 68, No. 5
2021 - “As-Built BIM Stages for Non-linear Design Building Management and Analysis,” Spring Conference of the Architectural Institute of Korea (AIK)
2019 - “Increasing Productivity through 3D Scan-to-BIM Automation,” Autumn Conference of the AIK
2019 - “3D Scanning Technology for Smart Maintenance of Super-Tall Buildings,” Journal of the Korean Association for Spatial Structures, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Feature Article)
2019 - “Engineering Applications in the Construction Phase Using High-Precision Survey Equipment (3D Laser Scanner, 3D Photo Scanner, Drone),” Spring Conference of the AIK
2019 - “Precise Investigation of Fire-Damaged Buildings through 3D Scanning,” Journal of the Korea Institute for Structural Maintenance and Inspection, Vol. 23, No. 1
2019 - “Point Cloud Data Coordination and Analysis for Sequential Deformation of Buildings,” Spring Conference of the AIK
2018 - “Real-BIM Construction Technology and Supplementary Considerations through 3D Scanning,” Review of Architecture and Building Science (Journal of the AIK), Vol. 62, No. 11
2018 - “Utilisation of 3D Scanner and BIM Data for the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Journal of the Korean Association for Spatial Structures, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Technical Article)
2018 - “Potential Effectiveness of 3D Scanning Algorithms for Real-BIM: Pre-Scanning and Post-Scanning Automation Algorithms,” Autumn Conference of the AIK
2018 - Research on Practical Technology Development for Overseas Super-Tall Buildings
2017 - Strategic Map Scanning for Residential Housing
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2015 - AA School - Diploma Programme (Master's)
2012 - AA School - Intermediate Programme (Bachelor's)
