Archinect - News

Meier Partners share photos of completed Sorol Art Museum in South Korea

2024-10-23T07:57:00-04:00

Meier Partners has shared the latest images of their completed Sorol Art Museum project in Gangneung, South Korea. The update follows the February debut of the 336,500-square-foot museum, which is dedicated to Korean artists and designed to elicit the aesthetic tenets of Confucian philosophy. The firm’s first completed work since restructuring in 2021 matches the site’s topographical conditions while arranging galleries in a T-shaped circulatory route that enables a "personal journey of discovery."

Dukho Yeon, the Partner-in-Charge for the project, described at its opening as a "modest but lyrical composition incised into this spectacular landscape that would become the perfect backdrop for art and remain forever memorable to all who visit."

You can see for yourself in Roland Halbe’s photos below. Three other projects, including a new children’s museum and the Kiwoom Finance Square tower, will follow in Seoul.

Image: © Roland Halbe

Image: © R...

Foster + Partners reveals Seoul ‘live-work’ tower with bay window facade

2024-10-03T09:46:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has unveiled its design for a new high-rise “live-work” building in Seoul, South Korea. The 14-story building, on a corner plot in the city’s Dosan-daero Road, is intended to “cater for a highly personalized approach to business hospitality.”

Image credit: Foster + Partners

The scheme includes twelve whole-floor units with personalized spaces for working and entertaining as well as private rooms for relaxation. Each unit contains a personal vault and access to a luxury lounge area, where owners can securely view and display belongings to guests. The vaults also include private dining rooms, bars, and a wine cellar, while a wellness level on the floor below offers a spa, pool, and luxury treatment areas.

Image credit: Foster + Partners

Outside, the building’s street-facing facade is broken down into a series of bay windows with private green balconies and winter gardens. The penthouse unit also has access to a private roof terrace with views of the city.

Image credit:...

Heatherwick Studio proposes hourglass-shaped volumes for Seoul shopping center

2024-08-02T14:35:00-04:00

Another mixed-use retail project from Heatherwick Studio is coming to Seoul. The newly announced Hanwha Galleria project covers an existing metro subway station with a glass atrium and two landscaped plaza areas. Two asymmetrical glass volumes resembling hourglass forms and containing gardened areas conceal its program. According to the firm's project description, the structures come sheathed in a double-skinned facade that can be programmed for nighttime projections.

Neil Hubbard, partner and group leader at Heatherwick studio, described: "Traditionally, department stores are quite inward facing, they feel closed off to the surrounding streets. But here we have an important intersection in Apgujeong with two buildings, east and west, that felt like an opportunity to bring people together."

Local studio Haeahn Architecture will collaborate on its design.

Image: Devisual, courtesy Heatherwick Studio

The project’s announcement follows Thomas Heatherwick being named as General Director...

Kengo Kuma's new Seoul audio museum opens as an 'architectural instrument'

2024-07-10T14:37:00-04:00

Kengo Kuma and Associates has inaugurated what could be this year’s most interesting new cultural project, the new Audeum (or Audio Museum) in Seoul, South Korea, following a two-year construction period.

The world’s first museum experience dedicated to sound is approximately 2.4 million square feet and supports sensory healing while offering visitors a unique experience of both its architecture and exhibitions in a design that's meant to evoke the forest canopy surroundings it appears to be a metallic natural outgrowth of.

Image courtesy Namsun Lee

The design team describes it as a "place where you can not only see but also experience sound firsthand. [...] it is not just a place to listen to sound; it is an architectural instrument that returns humans to a natural state, allowing them to experience the five senses of the body."

Image courtesy Yongbaek Lee

Image courtesy Namsun Lee

The idea for its establishment can be credited to Korean acoustics equipment s...

Thomas Heatherwick to direct 2025 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism

2024-06-03T19:10:00-04:00

South Korea's Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism just announced that Thomas Heatherwick will be the General Director of its fifth iteration next year.

Billed as Asia's biggest architecture biennial, the 2025 program seeks to explore "how to make buildings and cities radically more joyful and engaging," a mantra Heatherwick has been championing with his Humanise campaign.

"We are honored and thrilled by this appointment to curate our first Biennale," Heatherwick responded. "There are over 300 biennales taking place around the world today. But the original ambition to use them as vehicles for debate and engagement with the public, too easily gets lost in professional echo-chambers, which most ordinary people don’t engage with."

"We plan to turn the concept of a biennale inside out and create a big, full-throttle conversation with Seoulites. We want to get to the heart of what matter...

David Chipperfield’s K-Project corporate headquarters breaks ground in Seoul

2024-05-14T12:53:00-04:00

David Chipperfield Architects has just broken ground on a new corporate headquarters project for a South Korean IT company in Seoul. Construction for the new K-Project will advance toward a late 2027 completion and culminate in a new highly adaptable design that doubles as a piece of “social infrastructure” for the city’s Seongsu district.

Chipperfield says: “The energy and culture of the company occupying the building, and that of the diverse neighbourhood in which it is located are used to define a strong identity for the headquarters both visually through its dynamic façades and programmatically through a multi-use atrium.”

Rendering: Artefactory Lab, DCA, Brick

Programmatically, the concept works by traversing ‘Hardware’ and ‘Software’ layers vertically supported by eight vertical cylindrical cores, which lift the office component above a two-level ‘multiplex’ for retail and culture. This is the firm’s second corporate commission in Seoul after the completed Amorepacific Headqua...

Meier Partners completes Sorol Art Museum in South Korea

2024-01-30T18:43:00-05:00

Meier Partners has shared news of the recent completion of its Sorol Art Museum design in Gangneung, South Korea. The 336,500-square-foot project is meant to provide space for an immersive dialogue between Korean artists and the outside world and is the firm’s first completed work since its 2021 restructuring.

The building's internal structure is defined by a dual concept that arranges space into introverted and extroverted inter-dynamics based on the aesthetic theory of Korean Confucian philosophy. According to the architects, the external form utilizes the hillside’s natural topography to present the art inside on a pedestal to visitors in a way that also establishes the connection between nature and architecture as another core tenet of their experiences.

Image courtesy Meier Partners/Yongbaek Lee

Curators will have the option of controlling the gradations of light sources, both natural and artificial, inside the large skylit main exhibition space and smaller galleries. In a proj...

South Korea moves closer to getting its own MSG Sphere

2023-12-16T08:00:00-05:00

South Korean media outlets are reporting on a deal that would bring a new MSG Sphere design to the Seoul region just weeks after its controversial London predecessor was rejected over suspect environmental impact assessments and local opposition.

The new 20,000-capacity venue will feature a 1.2 million LED display, the same numbers as the now-open Las Vegas counterpart. The potential satellite would be included in the city of Hanam’s K-Star World project, a mixed-use district totaling 900,000 square meters and located roughly 12 miles to the east of the capital’s Gangnam neighborhood, according to the Korea Economic Daily.

"If Hanam attracts Asia’s first MSG Sphere, it will be an opportunity for Korea’s entertainment industry to take a quantum leap in attracting huge overseas investment and tourists," Mayor Lee Hyun-Jae told the paper in August.

He was reportedly looki...

RIOS unveils 100-year 'Hyper-Abundant City' concept at Seoul Biennale

2023-09-14T14:44:00-04:00

RIOS has released details of a new 100-year master plan included as part of its participation in the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (SBAU), which takes place through the end of October in the South Korean capital.

The firm's concept for the 'Hyper-Abundant City' significantly alters the upscale Apgujeong district by incorporating the urban fabric of the adjacent Gangnam neighborhood while extending an existing connection to the Han River. Ecological plots revealing vertical villages that are inspired by Hanok architectural traditions are protected by shoreline islands which the architects say aid in managing stormwater runoffs and flood mitigation. Finally, the plots are connected to each other through an interlinking series of open spaces that permeate the site.

Rendering by Aesthetica Studio, image courtesy of RIOS

The river’s natural systems are relieved by the careful selection and placement of access points which minimize human activity while allowing land to...

Tadao Ando opens ‘Space of Light’ pavilion in South Korea

2023-08-28T17:21:00-04:00

Tadao Ando has shared photos of his studio's new Space of Light meditative pavilion at the Museum SAN in Wonju, South Korea.

The second of two pavilions designed for the ten-year-old rural arts institution opened earlier this month. It is the third structure on the Ando-designed campus in Gangwon Province and coincides with the museum's exhibition of his youthful early designs — a tourist draw that's recently been extended for another three months owing to the self-taught Pritzker winner's tremendous popularity.

Image courtesy Museum SAN

The object of this design, Ando says, is to emulsify nature into the user’s experience, incorporating light into the otherwise murky auspices of the concrete-walled pavilion’s interior space uninterrupted in a way that recalls the philosophies embodied in his breakout 1989 Church of Light in Osaka, which features a nearly identical narrow cross opening in its façade.

Image courtesy Museum SAN

Offering a demarcation from its domed 2019 predecessor, wh...

This experimental project in South Korea by On Architecture utilizes concrete infused with rice straw

2023-07-07T15:54:00-04:00

Korean practice On Architecture INC. has created a project that aims to regenerate a village with an aging population in Icheon-si, South Korea, renowned for rice and flower farming.

Named NONSPACE, the project proposes new possibilities through an experimental cross-cultural facility or “cross-space,” as described by the architects, enabling interactions between diverse cultures. It intends to be a site for a variety of programs, going beyond the functions of a typical commercial space.

The architects employed an experimental construction technique by combining exposed concrete with rice straw to form an indoor atmosphere that feels like a straw-woven space.

Before concrete placement, bundles of rice straw were laid on the slab form and drenched with water in order to absorb the concrete’s moisture. The form and bundles were eventually removed, leaving the rice straw embedded in the concrete. Over time, the atmosphere of the space will transform as the straw undergoes changes.

NON...

Tadao Ando on 'Youth' and optimism for museum design

2023-06-28T08:00:00-04:00

I believe that a museum is the light of hope [...] A place where people can obtain the ‘nutrients for the soul’ necessary for living a rich and fulfilling life.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Ando says: “I always struggle with where to draw the line between nature and artificiality as I proceed with design,” telling the interviewer Edwin Heathcote (who says his 2013 Museum SAN in South Korea illustrates “the crisis in contemporary architecture”) that his goal for the project was to create “one big garden” before remarking on the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, the necessity of adaptive reuse, personal health challenges, and legacy.

The final leg of the 81-year-old icon’s touring retrospective Tadao Ando: Youth exhibition culminates at Museum SAN and will remain on view until July 30th of this year.

Take a look inside Seoul's National Assembly Communication Building

2023-06-21T13:55:00-04:00

South Korean firm Haeahn Architecture, alongside New York-based H Architecture, has shared a video and photographs of their National Assembly Communication Building project in Seoul, South Korea.

The nearly 255,686-square-foot structure is located inside the National Assembly complex, the home of South Korea’s national legislature.

Image: Namsun Lee

The complex was planned as an open space that reflects a pluralistic ideology, while also staying in touch with the existing components of the site. To meet the needs of multiple user groups, the architects say the building’s design prioritizes flexibility and expandability.

Image: Namsun Lee

The project site was described as a green space surrounded by lush trees. The firms aimed to preserve this identity by making the building low and on a human scale, ensuring its height would not exceed four stories and be set amongst the trees. The rooftop also reflects these surroundings through the featured green zone.

Image: Namsun Lee

The archit...

Centre Pompidou is expanding to Seoul and Saudi Arabia

2023-03-28T11:44:00-04:00

The iconic Centre Pompidou has confirmed that it will open a branch in Seoul, South Korea. The new museum, set to open in 2025, will join the center’s existing network of outposts in Shanghai, Malaga, and the French city of Metz.

According to Artnews, the new museum will be housed in the headquarters of South Korean business conglomerate Hanwa Group, in a skyscraper known as 63 Square. French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte is expected to oversee the design of the museum, having previously fulfilled interior design roles for the Louvre Museum and the British Museum.

When opened, the so-called “Pompidou Center Hanwha Seoul” will have permission to use the French museum’s properties for four years in a deal reported to be worth approximately 20 million USD. Throughout the four-year collaboration, the center will offer eight monographic exhibitions, spanning two per year, based on a selection of works from ...

Updated design emerges for BIG’s floating city in Busan, South Korea for OCEANIX

2022-04-27T11:06:00-04:00

Further details have been revealed for the design of OCEANIX Busan, described as the “world’s first sustainable floating city.” Designed by lead architects BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and SAMOO (Samsung), the project will be constructed in the South Korean city of Busan by advanced maritime company OCEANIX in collaboration with UN-Habitat.

Potential scaled-up version of the scheme. Image by OCEANIX / Bjarke Ingels Group

We first covered the project in 2019, when BIG unveiled the project as a utopian plan for floating cities, sparking extensive debate among our community. Late last year, it emerged that the city of Busan would take the lead on realizing the project. Now, new renderings of the scheme offer further insight into how the original utopian plan may manifest.

Initial phase of OCEANIX Busan, accommodating 12,000 people. Image by OCEANIX / Bjarke Ingels Group

The current proposal would see interconnected platforms create a 15.5-acre city capable of accommodating 12,000 people. T...

UNStudio-designed K-Pop 'urban speaker' heralds an amplification of Seoul's music industry

2022-03-16T17:54:00-04:00

The urban environment of Seoul is about to get quite a bit visually louder as UNStudio has returned to the South Korean capital with a new headquarters for the expanding K-Pop label YG Entertainment.

The building is meant to encapsulate “the industrious spirit of this production house’s business and the music industry as a whole.”

Photo © Rohspace, courtesy UNStudio

Its sleek interior is a play on the ‘black in black’ concept inside the neighboring YG Building, offering a brightly-lit, tree-lined atrium with a host of white tones and geometric lines that improve wayfinding and are enhanced by an influx of natural sunlight directed through its roof.

Photo © Rohspace, courtesy UNStudio

Above the atrium, a sectional concept unfolds based on function starting with four stories of capsule-like collaborative spaces supporting several recording studios and seven additional floors of offices with a stage-like presence that...

Heatherwick Studio designs floating parkland pier for Seoul

2022-01-27T15:26:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has unveiled their proposal for a public waterfront development in Seoul, South Korea. The proposal forms part of a wider sports and cultural district close to the site of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

Named The Leaf, the Heatherwick scheme consists of a multi-level pier sitting on the Han River. The pier features a walkable roofscape with undulating surfaces, consisting of winding trails, water gardens, play areas, observation points, and an event/auditorium space. The roofscape folds upwards at the edges to create lower-level waterside spaces as well as a marina for water taxis and leisure craft.

Image via Heatherwick Studio

“At the heart of our project is the idea of playful togetherness,” said Heatherwick Partner and Project Lead, Stuart Wood. “We want this to be a refreshing and dynamic new civic space for the city of Seoul where people come to laugh, explore, and connect. Somewhere joyful and restorative for everyone.”

Heatherwick is one of a number of arch...

Busan to take the lead in trying on Bjarke Ingels' floating OCEANIX CITY prototype in 2025

2021-11-30T09:00:00-05:00

In an effort to mitigate the impending effects of sea-level rise on coastal populations through architecture, UN-Habitat and OCEANIX are once again taking the lead with a new prototype for a floating settlement in the South Korean city of Busan.

The buzzworthy pair had previously made waves with a Bjarke Ingels-backed 2019 proposal for a floodproof habitat which has now officially found a home thanks to a groundbreaking agreement with the city’s government.

Now, with almost 50 centimeters of sea-level rise expected for the southern peninsula by mid-century, leaders in South Korea look to the prototype as a guide to extreme adaptation efforts that could help circumvent the challenges caused by an influx of coastal city dwellers overrunning a country of 52 million whose total land area is roughly equivalent to the state of Indiana.

Previously on Archinect: Bjarke Ingels presents utopian plan for sustainable floating cities to UN

The city proposal claims to be designed to withstand a...

The world's first K-Pop-dedicated concert venue breaks ground in South Korea

2021-11-04T17:06:00-04:00

South Korea is getting its first and largest-scale arena dedicated to K-Pop. The project, called CJ LiveCity Arena, is being spearheaded by CJ LiveCity, a subsidiary of South Korean entertainment company CJ ENM, in partnership with sports and live entertainment company AEG. The group held a groundbreaking ceremony last week to mark the start of the project’s construction phase. The arena is expected to open in 2024.

In a statement from 2019 announcing the partnership, CJ LiveCity’s CEO Michael Kim said: “This collaboration combines CJ’s long-standing cultural business capabilities with AEG’s venue development and operations expertise and its global live touring and promotions capacities. Seoul Metropolitan Arena, which will be designed by a leading architectural firm, is expected to be a competitive venue not only across Asia but also globally due to performances of K-Pop as well as world-renowned artists.”

The venue will be located in Greater Seoul’s Goyang City and is designed to ...

10-minute city masterplan for Seoul unveiled by UNStudio

2021-10-29T15:45:00-04:00

UNStudio has released details of Project H1, a self-described “10-minute city” masterplan for Seoul, South Korea. Built on an existing industrial site and railway area, the 5.4 million square foot (504,000 square meter) neighborhood saw a collaboration between UNStudio a the firm’s research wing UNSense to create a plan which prioritizes real-time digital urban systems.

Image courtesy of UNStudio

The studio describes this combination of a physical urban plan and an added technology layer as “a fully digitally serviced neighborhood to enhance the daily lives of the residents and free up time for leisure activities." The digital infrastructure will also be used to manage energy production and consumption, as well as communal spaces cultivated for local food production.

Image courtesy of UNStudio

“For the H1 masterplan we have aimed to create the ultimate contemporary 10-minute city, where the daily life experience of the residents is the top priority,” explained UNStudio founder Ben va...

Seoul's newest art space opens in a triangular concrete shape from Herzog & de Meuron

2021-07-15T14:04:00-04:00

A new home for South Korea’s energy giant ST International is nearing completion in Seoul, adding to the city’s reputation as an emerging art capital. The combination museum and corporate headquarters heralds a new vogue museum building in pronounced geometric form.

Herzog & de Meuron are behind the new SongEun Art Space that will double as an exhibition space for the 32-year-old foundation and the official home of the Korean conglomerate formerly known as Samtan. The Art Space has held dedicated space inside one of ST-owned properties since its inception in 2002.

The 8,000-square-meter new building forms a perfect right angle at the intersection of two busy main thoroughfares in Seoul’s Chung Dam district, its simple geometry serving as a complement to the optic new flagship for fashion house Juun.J that opened nearby in September 2019.

Wood-grained concrete forms an uneven 11-story scalene above-ground envelope that conceals the foundation’s subterranea...

USA’s largest offshore wind farm gains final approval, while world’s largest is announced by South Korea

2021-05-12T11:04:00-04:00

The United States has given final approval for what will be the largest offshore wind power project in the country’s history. The “Vineyard Wind” project will see as much as 84 wind turbines built 12 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. When completed, the project is expected to provide renewable energy for 400,000 homes and businesses, and supply over 2% of the energy needed to meet the country’s goal of generating 30 gigawatts from offshore wind by 2030.

The 800-megawatt project will be only the third offshore wind project to be built by the United States, after the 30-megawatt project at Block Island Wind, and a minor test project off the coast of Virginia. The USA’s lack of experience in offshore wind construction means there is currently a shortfall in infrastructure to produce turbines and blades, and the transport infrastructure needed to relocate them to the offshore sites. The Vineyard Wind project could serve as a catalyst for the development of this infrastructure and bo...

Pop Architecture's Korean War Memorial Park for Civil Victims earns honorable mention

2021-01-06T13:55:00-05:00

The New York-based architecture studio POP Architecture honors civil victims of the Korean War with a design submission for an international design competition seeking to create a national memorial.

Organized by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of the Republic of Korea and the local government of Dong-gu district in South Korea, the competition brief asked for a "sensitively-designed Park and a Memorial Hall that is spiritual while offering visitors an opportunity to deepen their understanding of Korea's darkest hour. This competition seeks to identify the very best design talent to create Memorial Park as a national symbol and a home to the local community."

After receiving submissions from 42 countries and 109 firms, the competition jury placed POP Architecture's "Korean War Memorial Park" in the top ten and earned itself an Honorable Mention.

Image courtesy of POP Architecture

According to the team from POP Architecture, "Our concept for ...

Snøhetta's city hall in South Korea connects the government with the people

2020-10-01T11:51:00-04:00

Following an international architecture competition, Snøhetta together with local partner Tomoon Architects and Engineers have won the bid to design the new city hall in Cheongju, South Korea. The new facilities embrace an ethos of community and integration between the government and its citizens.

For smooth operation and open communication between departments, administrative spaces are consolidated under one roof. The design addresses the currently scattered nature of governmental offices by bringing all parties into one holistic space.

The roof and facade are formed with a combination of translucent and opaque panels to convey an ethereal quality that connects the inner-workings of the "machine" to the public on the outside. Moreover, photovoltaics provide a renewable source of energy while the the laminated glazing throughout provides an ample offering of natural light.

The new building wraps around the existing city hall, which...

OMA completes otherworldly Galleria department store in Korea

2020-03-25T14:34:00-04:00

After being commissioned in 2016, OMA recently completed the sixth and largest location for upscale South Korean department store Galleria in Gwanggyo, a new town just south of Seoul. The building features multi-faceted glass protruding from a textured mosaic stone facade, which echoes the landscape of the neighboring Suwon Gwanggyo Lake Park. This distinct stone-like appearance “makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo,” OMA says.

As visitors walk along the public route that was “excavated” from the stone building, they will encounter retail spaces and cultural activities like exhibitions and performances that form a “Public Loop.” They can also peer through the multi-faceted glass facade to see views of Gwanggyo. The route eventually leads to a roof garden.

Photo © ...

2018 World Interior of the Year awarded to JAC STUDIOS' Yumin Art Nouveau Collection

2018-11-30T19:30:00-05:00

The Yumin Art Nouveau Collection by Danish practice JAC STUDIO was crowned the 2018 World Interior of the Year, marking the end of another INSIDE World Festival of Interiors. The last two days saw this year's nominated designers face off in a live competition at RAI Amsterdam in hopes to be named one of the 10 category winners.

After one final round of presentations by the category winners, the jury awarded the coveted grand prize to the Yumin Art Nouveau Collection for “its crafted sensitivity, to both the building and the Gallé glass to which the museum [is] dedicated”.

Photo credit: Yoonsung Choi, Jeongyoun Hong, Mathias Kromann Rode.

The Yumin Art Nouveau Collection is housed inside the elegant interiors of the Tadao Ando-designed Genius Loci building, which is located on the coastal landscape of Phoenix Jeju in South Korea. The Collection is a permanent exhibition of delicate glass produced during the Art Nouveau movement between the 1870s to 1940s by prominent artists like Émi...

MVRDV completes a white and gold entertainment complex by Seoul’s Incheon Airport

2018-09-21T16:38:00-04:00

MVRDV has recently completed The Imprint, a new 2-building art and entertainment complex next to Seoul’s Incheon Airport. Featuring a nightclub in one building and indoor theme park in the other, the windowless structures are part of the larger Paradise City complex of 6 buildings next to South Korea's largest airport.

The program required an expressive facade with no windows. The firm created an imprint based design using façade features of the surrounding buildings, lifted entrances, and a golden entrance spot covering one corner of the nightclub building.

The façade was constructed of glass-fibre reinforced concrete panels. As many of the 3,869 panels are unique with construction requiring moulds to be individually produced using the f...

Morphosis announces opening of new flagship location for Kolon Group in Seoul

2018-08-28T16:12:00-04:00

Morphosis recently announced the opening of a new flagship research and design facility for The Kolon Group, a leading manufacturing company based in South Korea. The 820,000-square-foot facility is located in Magok, an emerging tech hub in Seoul.

Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located in Seoul. Image: Jasmine Park, courtesy of Morphosis.

The design for the new facility features flexible laboratory facilities, administrative offices, and active social spaces to encourage interaction and exchange across the company departments.

Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located in Seoul. Image: Jasmine Park, courtesy of Morphosis.

The façade consists of interconnected sunshades made from fiber reinforced polymer using one of The Kolon Group's own high-tech fabrics, Aramid, to increase the material’...

South Korean construction companies expect big business in the north

2018-06-15T16:07:00-04:00

In the wake of the Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, South Korean builders are planning for a flood of infrastructure projects in the northern half of the peninsula. The Construction Association of Korea plans to hold a forum for construction companies, research institutes and public entities on 25 June to discuss possible projects and funding arrangements.

While Koreans on both sides of the Military Demarcation Line appear increasingly hopeful in the wake of recent friendly diplomatic exchanges, it's the deep-pocketed South Korean industrial conglomerates that have started to map out the north's opportunities for development. Shares in Hyundai Asan, Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Samsung C&T, and retail giant Lotte are trending up.

Darkest building on Earth: Asif Khan's Vantablack-coated pavilion opens for Winter Olympics

2018-02-08T14:01:00-05:00

Sprayed with Vantablack Vbx2, a pavilion at the Winter Olympics in South Korea absorbs 99% of light. [...] Lurking between the competition venues like an angular black hole, it looks like a portal to a parallel universe, waiting to suck unsuspecting ski fans into its vortex.

Photo: Luke Hayes/Hyundai

Sports fans around the world can't wait for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to officially open tomorrow, but there's more to the spectacle than just athletic competitions on snow and ice: London-based architect & designer Asif Khan has created the "darkest building on earth" by coating the temporary pavilion he designed for South Korean car maker Hyundai in Vantablack Vbx2, a super-black nanomaterial which absorbs more than 99% of the light that reaches its surface — the result is the visual illusion of a massive black void.

Photo: Luke Hayes/Hyundai

"It’s like a nano-scale coral reef," The Guardian quotes Ben Jensen, chief technical officer of Surrey Nanosystems, the British company which has developed the mysterious material. "Photons get into it and they bounce around within its structure until they’re all absorbed. The optical cavities in the ‘reef’ are around 1,000th the width of a human hair."

Photo: Luke Hayes/Hyundai

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