2008 Awards
HONOR AWARD - Un-Built Projects
Seoul Yeouido Riverside Park Master Plan, Seoul, Republic of Korea
EDAW, Inc.
www.edaw.com
EDAW was charged with the task of preparing the design of Yeouido Riverside Park for an international design competition organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Yeouido holds a unique geological history as an island which was once separated from the land by the constant flooding of the river. Once an ecologically rich alluvial island shaped by the natural cycle of river flooding, Yeouido has lost its touch with the river due to the urbanization and industrialization of the past 30 years. The design seeks to integrate two parallel histories: the natural ecological evolution of the river and the urban, economic development history of Korea. Since the site is subject to destructive flooding, the notion of suspended fear and volatile conditions formed part of the original bias of the site. The EDAW team started with this very notion of fear and terror, and tried to shift the vision of the river into one of positive, sustainable dynamic ecology. The design proposes to reintroduce flooding back to the site in a controlled manner to embrace this natural process as part of an active park program through a series of riparian meadows, wetland terraces and submersible islands. Through this dialogue of ecology, program and change, the design provides for the complex weave of twenty-first century requirements (both human and natural), where resultant forms are platforms of negotiation and the receivers of specific programs and populations.
