Korea: The Latest Architecture and News

Built before the 1988 Summer Olympics, the Seoul Olympic Stadium in the Korean capital city’s Songpa District remains an active and treasured institution. Designed by Kim Swoo-geun, the stadium represents a significant moment in Korea’s modern history and remains a venue for large concerts and the home of Seoul E-Land FC.

While the Olympic Stadium itself will stand visibly intact in its original form, this spring the Korea National Urban Planning Association staged a competition for a new design of the Jamsil Sports Complex, which includes several sporting venues and buildings adjacent to the stadium, as well as almost 160,000 square meters of total area. Following the deadline earlier this month, the jury has announced NOW Architects in collaboration with NBBJ and SAMOO, as the winners of the competition.

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The Fundació Mies van der Rohe has announced a list of 40 projects that will compete for the Young Talent Architecture Award 2018 (YTAA 2018). The award was established in 2016 to “support the talent of recently graduated Architects, Urban Planners and Landscape Architects who will be responsible for transforming our environment in the future,” and joins the Foundation's European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award “in promoting high-quality work amongst emerging and established architects through the acknowledgment of the value of good buildings.”

More than 330 projects were submitted from over 118 European, Chinese, and Korean architecture schools, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of 40 projects by an esteemed jury of architects and curators. The YTAA 2018 exhibition is a collateral event at the Venice Biennale, opening on May 24th at the Palazzo Mora, where 12 finalists will be announced. The names of the four winning schemes will become known on June 28th.

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Videos

Asif Khan's Vantablack pavilion, the world's first super-black building, will open at the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony on 9 February 2018.

The Olympic pavilion is coated with Vantablack VBx2 carbon nanotubes and illuminated by thousands of tiny white light rods. These rods extend from the structure's parabolic super-black facade and create the illusion of a field of stars suspended in space. Looking at the building will be the closest experience to looking into space from a point on Earth.

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Hyunje Joo's design for a façade in South Korea is a proposal that addresses the separation between the interior and exterior with the construction of a flexible, light, and recyclable architectural element.

The project, a surface made up of 1,500 semi-transparent plastic baskets, diffuses the light and the silhouettes, while offering the ability to be reused with different configurations in different places.

Bricks are as old as the hills. An enduring element of architectural construction, brick has been a material of choice as far back as 7000BC. Through the centuries, bricks have built ancient empires in Turkey, Egypt, Rome and Greece. Exposed stock brick came to define the Georgian era, with thousands of red brick terraces still lining the streets of cities such as London, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Today, brick is experiencing a Renaissance. Architectural landmarks across the world such as Frank Gehry’s Dr Chau Chak Wing Building in Sydney and the Tate Modern Switch House by Herzog & de Meuron are pushing the proverbial brick envelope, redefining how the material can be used and perceived.

South Korea presents an interesting case for the changing face of brick, with a preference for dark, grey masonry striking a heavy, brutalist, yet playful tone. Like many countries, South Korean brick architecture has questioned conformity, experimenting with stepped, perforated, permeable facades, and dynamic, curved, flowing walls. Below, we have rounded up 12 of their most interesting results.

The collaboration of Seiyong Kim, Yongwon Kwon, Sungyeon Hwang and Wonyang Architecture has won second place in the International Ideas Competition for Establishing Busan Station as The Cub of Creative Economy in Busan, Korea. The competition sought out proposals to revitalize the original downtown area, Busan Station is the starting point for a larger Busan North Port redevelopment project.

Architecture and Urban Planning firm group8asia has won third prize in the Seoul Metropolitan Government competition for the design of Nodeul Island with its sustainable project Seoul Green Dot.

Nodeul Dream Island leads with the idea of Neverland in mind, and is designed as “a utopia where nature and serenity are abundant.” Here, it is hoped that environmental economy, and socially sustainable practices can be utilized to create a space to transform the dense urban fabric.

Architects for Urbanity has released its designs for Seoul Urban Womb, a mixed-use women’s and family complex in South Korea. Located in Daebang-dong at the former site of the Seoul Women’s Shelter, the project aims to revitalize the current Seoul Women’s Plaza, a space previously described as “gloomy” and “deathlike.”

The new facility will serve as a connection between the Women’s Plaza and nearby train station, as a mix of public and private space, and is hoped to help “form creative culture, [teach] traditions, and expand the value of gender equality in family and community.”

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London-based Gilles Retsin Architecture has unveiled its entry for the Suncheon Art Platform competition, an arts center formed by a low, horizontal structure that frames a series of courtyards and squares in Suncheon, Korea.