Matter Value

In the studio, students develop proposals for the adaptive reuse of the Donuimun Museum Village in Seoul, Korea. The projects explore a combination of retaining historic buildings, providing work and retail spaces, and designing a new form of civic space that promotes experience and awareness of ecology within the urban environment.

The site was initially part of the old city walls of Seoul, known as Donuimun (which translates to "Gate of the East"). It was historically a residential area with traditional Korean architecture, but it underwent significant changes over the decades due to modernization and urban development. In the early 2000s, as Seoul was rapidly transforming, there was a growing interest in preserving parts of its historical and cultural heritage.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is developing proposals to radically redesign the adjacent Gyeonghui Palace due to the reported visitor numbers of 1500 per day, which is very low compared to 57,430 people per day in Gyeongbokgung Palace and 28,150 people in Deoksugung Palace. The city's response is to overhaul the site, offering extensive new civic space and new forms of pedestrian access across the hillside topology. The masterplan suggests that the Donuimun Museum Village is to be demolished and absorbed into the new civic space in the form of walkways and parks. Not only does this erase the remaining significant historic structures on the site, but it raises questions about the environmental and economic wastefulness of demolishing an area that was only redeveloped less than a decade ago for $25 Million USD.