Architecture Research Unit One of Three Winning Design Teams for Korean City

Florian Beigel and Philip Christou’s Architecture Research Unit (ARU) at London Metropolitan University is one of 3 equal winners of the Saemangeum international urban design competition in Korea.

The Architecture Research Unit, under the direction of Prof. Florian Beigel, was 1 of 7 international design research teams selected to participate in this competition to propose a design concept for the space of a new global city of the 21st Century on the southwest coast of South Korea. Construction of the longest sea wall in the world (34 km) began in 1992 and was completed in 2006. It now encloses an area of freshwater lake of more than 400 sq km.

Architecture Research Unit’s competition winning entry

The site of this large-scale urban landscape project encompasses approx. 283 sq km of newly reclaimed land and 118 sq km of freshwater lake that will be constructed within the area enclosed by the sea wall. Saemangeum has been designated as a free economic zone to attract domestic and international investment in tourism, service industries, advanced food production and manufacturing.

Proposals for the new city were presented to the South Korean government last month

Three international teams have been asked to respond to comments of the jury in preparation of presentation to Korean Central Government Task Force on Saemangeum. The three winning teams are: London Metropolitan University; Alexander D’Hooghe and Nadir Tehrani at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jeffrey Inaba at Columbia University.

Philip Christou said: “I think the purpose of the competition is to open the eyes of the central government and show them what is possible rather than just have a standard civil engineering project. It was a good challenge. None of the teams had worked at that scale before.”