The theme of the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism is “Land Architecture and Land Urbanism: City of Mountain Ranges, Waterways, and Wind Breezes, Drawing of Seoul’s Next 100 Years.” This exhibition introduces architects’ research works and ideas on ‘Land Architecture and Land Urbanism.’ The main contents are imagining the future city of Seoul and South Korea. These are largely divided into three categories: Seoul Green Ring (SGR), Future Transformation of Architecture & Urbanism (OCS), and Seoul Architecture & Urbanism Platform (SAUP).

Seoul Green Ring (SGR) started its concept from the old city of Hanyang Castle, where the Seoul Wall was built in the early Joseon Dynasty. Hanyang, the old city name of Seoul, was connected by Sunseong-gil around the castle wall as King Taejo designated it the capital of Joseon and built its wall. Since then, the population has increased, and the city has naturally formed its physical shapes around mountains, waterways, and valleys. Through modernization and economic development, it has become a place with 10 million residents and 25 million working people in the metropolitan area altogether. Despite the expansion to Gangnam and the city’s growth, mountains surrounding Seoul were connected by the Seoul Dulle-gil and maintained its characteristics. With the growing emphasis on linear parks and the integration of parks with residential areas due to the impact of COVID-19, the importance of creating connection between parks and residences has escalated. Enabling seamless connectivity between pedestrians, parks, and their residences has become a crucial aspect in enhancing the quality of urban spaces. The x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-objective of Seoul Green Ring is to establish a 3km-radius green path network in each area of Seoul that links the entire city, including the Han River waterfront. This network aims to facilitate convenient access to key green spaces from both residential and commercial areas across Seoul. Seoul Green Ring represents a form of “Massive Transformative Purpose,” envisioning Seoul’s future as an ecological city. To realize this vision, it is essential to establish urban planning incentive systems that utilize on multi-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-layered public walkways for new buildings. This green ring, can be used as emergency channels for future transportation such as urban air mobility (UAM) and our descendants will enjoy the future ecological city, Seoul.

One City-State (OCS), the future transformation of architecture and urbanism, is an exploration of how cities will change and where and how we will live in future Korea. The keywords of future urban architecture revealed through a data mining process with the help of AI can be largely divided into four categories: transportation logistics, digital transformation, carbon neutrality, and population change. Focusing on these keywords, our goal was to look at the future of megaregions in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan, and the future of Korea, where the population is decreasing and some remote regions are going extinct.

‘SAUP, Hangang Whale’ serves as a digital platform for imagining the future of urban spaces in Seoul. Various architects’ diverse ideas of future Seoul are showcased in this exhibition, allowing easy exploration via computer screens and mobile devices. Although currently in its early stages, Hangang Whale could evolve into a significant platform for architectural communication as a variety of ideas accumulate over time, even after the Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism.

Curator: Eui Young Chun
Venue: Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture

Exhibition Assistants: Yeong Won Yoo, Tae Kyu Kim, Hye Jin Han, Jean Chun
SAUP Platform: Korean Institute of Architects, GS Engineering and Construction Corp., Planningo Inc.