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Located in Seoul, the Lotte World Tower, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, has become the world’s fifth tallest tower, in the process knocking 1WTC—the tallest U.S. American building—out of the top five. At 555 meters tall, the Lotte World Tower has also surpassed Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin... View full entry
The aim of bringing in Foster’s brand of highly engineered minimalism is to help attract the industry’s “top talent and provide an inspirational place to work”.
The development contains “light filled offices, advanced laboratories and dynamic social spaces to nurture a culture of openness and innovation”.
Located in the heart of Asia’s “Silicon Valley”, the centrepiece of the facility are the tire testing and research laboratories, which are on display to invited visitors and staff.
— globalconstructionreview.com
More Foster + Partners:Norman Foster reimagines global infrastructure strategies in new essayFoster + Partners begins construction of "floating" Copenhagen office buildingConstruction begins on major Foster + Partners project in SwedenApple's spaceship campus, by the numbers (including an... View full entry
LDF aims to grow the Lotte Duty Free Shop World Tower into the world’s No.1 duty-free shopping destination.
[...] Lotte is poised to turn the Lotte World Tower into a tourist attraction that can compare well with Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands
On top of that, the company plans to make the Lotte World Tower the largest tourism hub in Gangnam by equipping it with the world's highest observatory (located on the 123rd floor (555 meters high) [...].
— koreaittimes.com
Related in the Archinect News:Seoul's Lotte World Tower complex passes safety inspections, allowed to reopenConstruction in Seoul’s supertall Lotte World Tower surpasses 100th story – amid safety concernsMysterious Sinkholes Appear Near Construction Site of Supertall Skyscraper in Seoul View full entry
The site is located in Kaesong, the old imperial capital of medieval Korea, now a small industrial city located in North Korea, just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). [...]
“There were wars of nerves between South and North scholars due to differences in methodologies, but we were in a same boat on the achievement of this excavation.”
— qz.com
Lotte World Mall has finally received approval by the Seoul city government to open up its aquarium and movie theater, five months after the facilities were shut down due to safety concerns. [...]
Lotte World Mall has been embroiled in several safety issues since it opened its doors in October. Several construction workers fell to their deaths during the construction of the annexed skyscraper [...].
— Korea JoongAng Daily
Previously:Construction in Seoul’s supertall Lotte World Tower surpasses 100th story – amid safety concernsMysterious Sinkholes Appear Near Construction Site of Supertall Skyscraper in Seoul View full entry
“The first thing is to find the identity of Seoul,” he says. “Seoul was created very differently from western cities, with special theories of feng shui and Confucianism, and we kept that for 600 years. We didn’t change anything – even under Japanese colonialism, that was kept. But since the 1960s, under American influence, it has changed very much.”
If Seung has his way, the days of skyscrapers springing up in central Seoul would come to an end.
— ft.com
Jang Won Choi, Kyung Min Kwon, and Cheon Kang Park of collaborative team MOON JI BANG recently won the inaugural Young Architects Program Seoul in South Korea with their proposal, "Shinseon Play". The proposal draws inspiration from traditional Korean mythology with features like gently swaying "clouds", a trampoline, and a grassy meadow -- making it an ideal outdoor installation for the summer season. — bustler.net
Find out more on Bustler. View full entry
In the Korean Peninsula's response to the 2014 Venice Biennale theme of rediscovering national identity through architecture, the "Crow's Eye View" pavilion explores the divided state of North and South Korea, and extends that discussion to the global state of architecture itself. The multi-themed pavilion uses architecture as a key to discovering new narratives of the peninsula's complex past, present, and future in an architectural and social perspective. — bustler.net
Find details of the pavilion on Bustler.Related: A rare look at North Korean architecture, brought to you by non-Koreans View full entry
The Korea pavilion has been a part of the Venice Architecture Biennale since 1993, when the optimism of the post-Berlin Wall era made reunification between North and South Korea seem plausible. But getting equal representation from both Northern and Southern architects in 2014 has proved nearly... View full entry
They conceive of urban space as space owned by the public, not space for real estate development. — Dongwoo Yim, NK News
Much of the North Korean news that reaches the United States reads like tabloid hearsay, as glimpses of a totalitarian dictatorship rife with human rights violations are peeked through Dennis Rodman and military showboating. NK News, an independent and private news source based in Washington... View full entry
New York-based H Architecture sent us their winning proposal for the Sejong 2-2 M2 Block Public Housing Development competition. In celebrating its 50-year apartment building history, the Korea Land and Housing Corporation opened a call for ideas for its new 77,000m2 housing development in Sejong City, South Korea. — bustler.net
H Architecture's proposal -- done in collaboration with Haeahn Architecture -- revolves around an open, versatile "not-to-define" concept as a response to the typical rigid approach of public housing design. View full entry
Grimshaw Architects recently announced the completion of the Ecorium at the National Ecology Center in Seocheon, South Korea -- making this the firm's first project in Asia. The newly built ecological educational and research center gives visitors a first-hand experience to learn about the... View full entry
Architectural follies impose on our assumptions of what architecture is and what it should be -- what is function, what is beauty, where do private and public space meet. Gwangju Folly II, part of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, highlights the politicization of public space through multiple... View full entry
When I first heard of Paju Bookcity, I imagined a bibliophilic paradise of human-scaled buildings with legible facades nestled side-by-side like volumes on a shelf. When I traveled to the real Paju Bookcity, I found an industrial estate created by companies related to all aspects of book manufacturing, sited north of Seoul in the marshes near the Demilitarized Zone. But if Bookcity is not the fairy tale I envisioned, it is a kind of Cinderella story: this is the industrial park remade. — Places Journal
On Places, Shannon Mattern explores the ongoing remaking of Bookcity — which seeks to reinvent invent Korean publishing, architecture and urban planning — in the digital era. View full entry