Heechan Park(Urban Agency)

The Han River in Seoul formed the current uniform width of 1km due to flood prevention and the need to connect east-west arterial roads. These changes lost the diversity of the Han River and accelerated the social and economic separation between Gangnam and Gangbuk. In today’s Seoul, the Han River requires a new urban strategy that can operate as a broad urban space that can accommodate various possibilities, not as a boundary dividing Seoul into north and south.

To this end, we propose a ‘multi-layered complex connection’ conceived through the process of extending and reconnecting the urban organizations of Gangbuk and Gangnam. ‘Floating Islands’ with various scales and programs are connected to the network and provide various waterside experiences and urban events to city residents. Through this series of processes, the density of a new urban space will be generated in the middle of the Han River, and the Han River can be transformed from a simple boundary between urban areas to a platform that provides various urban spaces.

Heechan Park, together with Henning Stuben, is co-founder of Urban Agency, jointly operating offices in Copenhagen, Denmark and Dusseldorf, Germany, and are carrying out various projects around the world.