Seoul Panorama 2123 (2023)
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2023
100-year Masterplan Exhibition
Representative Team (Type C)
(currently closed)
Team: Changyong Kim, Jaejin Lee, Meelae Jang, and Sungjin Park
Role: Team Leader
Design & Modeling: Rhino, Grasshopper, QGIS, Figma
Languages & Scripting: Python, Javascript
Programming Libraries: React, Three.js
Data Storage & Hosting: Amazon S3, Vultr
Role: Team Leader
Design & Modeling: Rhino, Grasshopper, QGIS, Figma
Languages & Scripting: Python, Javascript
Programming Libraries: React, Three.js
Data Storage & Hosting: Amazon S3, Vultr
Following the natural contours of the terrain, the project introduces a landscape-responsive infrastructure system that harmonizes architecture, topography, and technology, transforming hillside settlements into self-sustaining, ecologically adaptive communities. In parallel, a web-based participatory master planning program was developed to enable citizens to propose, simulate, and share ideas, collectively shaping the city’s evolution. Presented both as a physical exhibition at the Seoul Hall of Urbanism and Architecture and as an online platform (www.seoulpanorama2123.com), the project visualizes a future in which data, play, and participation converge to form a collective urban intelligence, imagining a new landscape of coexistence among humans, technology, and nature.
Linking Seoul 100-year Master Plan with Green Network
The Seoul 100-year Master Plan envisions a framework for an “eco-friendly, high-density Seoul” shaped by a unified urban flow 100 years from now. It aims to reconnect the broken veins of the city’s unique geographic and physical conditions, including mountains, valleys, waterways, and wind paths, to form an integrated green network. The hilly residential areas of Seoul are places where the city’s urban framework intertwines with organically formed residential fabric. The “Multilayered Green Hill City / Architecture (Type C)” introduces a new approach to linking the city’s mountains with its green spaces, while addressing issues such as inadequate infrastructure, poor housing conditions, excessive damage to the terrain, and the loss of existing urban structures and communities due to complete demolition.
Emerging Threats to Mountains: Post-Anthropocene Infrastructure
The mountains of Seoul, a hundred years from now, will face growing threats from the emergence of automated post-anthropocene infrastructure such as colocation data centers. Low-cost mountain areas, in particular, are likely to become prime targets for the development of automation and network-based facilities, intensifying conflicts between nature, the city, people, and technology. This project seeks to explore possibilities for coexistence by gently integrating such future infrastructure into hillside residential areas.
Degradation Map of Endangered Daemo-Guryong Mountain
Daemo-Guryong Mountain, forming the boundary of Seoul, is one of the mountains that has suffered the most degradation, long concealed by indifference. Home to the National Intelligence Service, the Korea District Heating Corporation, tunnels, apartment complexes, farmland, shantytowns, and religious facilities, this area is a political terrain where power, capital, and ideology are deeply entangled. After witnessing the failure of past master plans under various pressures, we must recognize that over the next hundred years, new desires may once again be projected onto the mountain. In today’s Seoul, where available land is scarce, mountains unsuited for human habitation face two possible fates: destructive transformation to fit human needs, or encroachment by future urban infrastructure that excludes people.
Mountain-Grid: Respect for Mountain, Infrastructure, and People
By adopting contour lines as the framework for a new infrastructure grid, this system avoids disrupting the natural landscape and supports sustainable hillside housing. Upper levels accommodate residential units, offices, community centers, and data centers, while lower levels house parking, public building cores, and essential infrastructure. Waste heat and renewable energy generated by data centers and public facilities are reused to power homes, offices, greenhouses, and farms.
Ever-evolving Web-Based Master Planning Platform: Seoul Panorama 2123
Seoul Panorama 2123 offers an online master-planning tool that gamifies the planning process and enables citizens to propose designs. The platform aims to improve living conditions in Seoul’s hillside areas while incorporating citizens’ perspectives. It envisions a participatory process in which citizens actively select development sites on Mt. Daemo-Guryong. Rather than presenting a fixed master plan, the project provides a flexible framework that supports an evolving planning workflow. Open-sourcing both the building designs and the web-based planning tool allows diverse groups to adapt and apply these ideas, extending them to other mountainous areas.
Application of Mountain-Grid System in Daemo-Guryong Mountain
The Mountain-Grid System provides a universal and adaptive method for plot subdivision and analysis applicable to diverse mountainous terrains. At the same time, it encompasses a computational design process capable of generating diverse buildings in response to terrain conditions such as slope and altitude.
Dynamic Scoring System for Balanced Masterplan
A proposed evaluation system reviews numerous design submissions, balancing expert opinions with societal demands. It employs three core metrics: Landscape Affinity (LAF), Development Profitability (DPR), and Public Contribution (PUC). This dynamic system incorporates public design data and fosters balanced growth across the three metrics.