remake/remodel

tongyeong, south korea



2018

The dockyards at Tongyeong were a center for shipbuilding until the 2008 global economic crash. Following the crash, they fell into rapid decline as the demand for large ships dwindled. The region now faces unemployment issues as it struggles to move forward after its single industry disappeared. The development strategy for the city is to produce a culture and arts belt along the waterfront feeding into a park system. The existing shipbuilding factories will be remodeled into new facilities for arts and leisure creating jobs and attracting visitors. Re-Make/Re-Model looks at new forms of leisure coming not through traditional activities such a sports or idle time but rather through learning and making. The dockyard is re-conceived as a landscape of exchange from ideas, to materials, to technology.

The existing warehouse spaces become scaffolds to create large open spaces to accommodate a range of teaching and making spaces. Programs range from food preparation, to small batch production and sewing, to cutting metal with cnc technology, the campus becomes a site to promote innovation and creativity alongside a trend toward dis-ownership and empowerment of prosumers. The lower levels invite curiosity as people move from space to space and inside to outside, past all the different projects and classes unfolding. The spaces flow together and combine to host activities from a two person meeting to large conferences. A series of figural volumes are rested on top of the warehouses to produce new fixed spaces such as auditoriums, industrial shops, and raw material storage rooms. Inter-cut throughout the structure are bursts of vegetation and open ended bench/tables. Rather than the typical campus with monolithic closed buildings and landscapes decorating the exterior, here the inside and outside flow together to form a continuously open space for exchange.