I think that’s partly a matter of taste and partly a question of local climate. In warmer parts of the world you want to have homes that are less open to direct sunlight, in which case a deep balcony that provides shade, and a lack of extra windows make sense. You see this kind of stuff taken in to account when you look at traditional architecture in a lot of countries in the middle east and Africa. It’s all part of constructing houses with natural forms of temperature control rather than wasting energy on air conditioning (or on the other side of the spectrum heating in colder climates). Admittedly Korea has a temperate climate so that might not have been the reason in this case.