National Children's Museum of Korea
Along with winning the competition to masterplan the new National Museum Complex of South Korea, Office Ou was awarded the design of the first three buildings on site, including the National Children’s Museum of South Korea.
The Children’s Museum is designed to be a place for kids to enjoy being kids to the fullest, but also for kids to learn and grow up surrounded by values of civic and environmental stewardship. Thanks to the museum’s forecourt and rear landscape, the experience of the place can change drastically from season to season, making it enjoyable and exciting regardless of the time of year and weather.
Location: Sejong, South Korea
Status: Built
Date: 2018-2024
Local AOR: Junglim
Along with winning the competition to masterplan the new National Museum Complex of South Korea, Office Ou was awarded the design of the first three buildings on site, including the National Children’s Museum of South Korea.
The Children’s Museum is designed to be a place for kids to enjoy being kids to the fullest, but also for kids to learn and grow up surrounded by values of civic and environmental stewardship. Thanks to the museum’s forecourt and rear landscape, the experience of the place can change drastically from season to season, making it enjoyable and exciting regardless of the time of year and weather.
The current design of the first step of construction em- bodies many of the decisions and requirements established during the past three years of work. We hope that the Children’s museum will be a playful space for kids and parents to explore, while being flexible enough to accommodate changing exhibitions and varied programming.
The final facade design iterations led us to exploring the use of terracotta extrusions for the National Children’s Museum. The terracotta facades were designed as uneven triangular extrusions that would only be glazed on one side, creating an alternatingly soft or vivid look as one walks around the building.
The landscape of the forecourt is a crucial piece of the design as it welcomes visitors to the museum. This landscape began as a friendly orchard for children and while its design evolved over time with the input of the client body, the aim of creating an immersive, interactive landscape for children to play within nature remained.
Namdo History Museum
Toronto-based Office Ou has been selected as a finalist for the design of the Namdo History Museum.
| Location: | Namdo, South Korea |
|---|---|
| Status: | Competition Finalist |
| Date: | 2022 | With: | HLD Landscape, SAC |
The Namdo Righteous Army History Museum will commemorate the civilian militias who, throughout Korean history, volunteered to stand up to protect their land when it was under threat. They were the grassroots of Korean society, ordinary working class people including peasants, butchers and other labourers.
The museum is to be located on a heavily damaged hill, the site of a soon to be decommissioned historical recreation complex used for movies and TV shows. With our project, we ask: how can we memorialize the Righteous Armies while learning from their history to address contemporary challenges which are now largely social and ecological? What does it mean to protect the land and stand up for justice? How can an integrated landscape and architecture project both practice and memorialize the fundamental ethos of the Righteous Armies?
Site design matrix
Embody the Spirit of the Righteous Army
In order to embody the spirit of the Jeollanam-do Righteous Armies, the museum park must reflect the unique, historical nature of ordinary people taking up arms to protect their country. It must combine the diverse layers that made up the lives of Righteous Army members, and symbolically embody the transformative nature of their historic actions.
The project combines three layers of life on one site: the fighting life of the Jeollanam-do Righteous Armies, the everyday life of Jeollanam-do peasants, butchers, soldiers, and scholars who became Righteous Army soldiers, and the lives of diverse contemporary visitors to the site who will come here to learn, think, and rest. These three layers haveunique purposes, landscapes, temporalities, and design languages.
Fighting Life
The purpose of the fighting life is to stand up to invaders. Its landscapes are mountain encampments, hideouts, and battlefields. Its time-scale is centuries of history. It is embodied in the design language of rugged rock-like figures jutting out of the mountain terrain, as if the hills of Jeollanam-do are themselves rebelling against invaders.
Ordinary Life
The purpose of ordinary life is to take care of the land and its people. Its landscapes are villages, farms, and orchards. Its time-scale is that of the seasons. It is embodied in the intervention of ecological restoration, soil stabilization, reforestation, and re-introduction of productive landscapes on an ecologically damaged site.
Life of a Visitor
The purpose of contemporary visitors is to learn, reflect, and take a break from their daily routine. Their landscape is a memorial park. Their time-scale is that of a short visit. The design intervention for them is the accessible paths through the site, as well as visitor facilities and parking.
The design evolves through following steps:
First, the terrain is restored to a stable and healthy condition and the existing ecosystem is strengthened. Tending to the wellbeing of the land and all of its multispecies inhabitants is itself an act of land protection. This recreates two zones which were historically on the site: the forest and the fields.
Second, the landscape is differentiated into several zones: arrival zone by the Sa-am Reservoir; wetlands; fields growing crops for crafts; village; agricultural area; and finally the museum in the forest. Each landscape is guarded by rugged masonry monuments that memorialize the members of the Righteous Armies.
Third, these zones are inhabited with life. This requires their subdivision into plots, and addition of necessary infrastructure to support the activities of each. The life of the site should reflect the diversity of the ordinary lives of the Righteous Army members.
Finally, a series of pathways for visitors is added, with a main, accessible pathway that meanders through all zones. The museum park commemorating the Righteous Armies should be accessible to everyone.
Slope Restoration
The construction of Naju Image Theme Park has damaged the landscape of the site, creating erosion risks, cutting back its forests, and erasing its historic agricultural fields. The memorial park of Jeollanam-do Righteous Army Museum must have regenerative properties, creating landscapes and buildings that become integral and beneficial parts of the local ecosystems and the local cultural identity.
The project recreates gentle slopes in strategic portions of the site through an on-site cut and fill process, and creates terraces that support slope stability necessary for ecological revitalization. These interventions protect the hill and help manage water runoffs to reduce erosion.
Forest Rehabilitation
The forest around the Naju Theme Park ends at an abrupt edge. This limits the wildlife movement across the site, reducing its value as a habitat. Revitalizing the ecology of the site requires restoration of a healthy forest edge.
The project expands the forest into the site. It creates a healthy forest edge by gradually transitioning from an evergreen pine forest, to deciduous tree species, and finally lower shrubs. The length of the forest edge is significantly increased by extending "fingers" of forest into the site. The length of the transition zone, and its gradual nature maximizes habitat range and ecological complexity of the site.
Inviting Local Communities
Righteous Armies came from diverse backgrounds. They were farmers, soldiers,butchers, craftsmen, and scholars. Inviting local communities to inhabit the park embodies the spirit of the Righteous Armies in two ways: by recreating through the diversity of users of the site the diverse membership of Righteous Armies, and by fostering a connection to the local community much like the Righteous Armies experienced.
In addition to the Museum program, the park creates zones dedicated for crafts, food production, research, and art. By diversifying its stakeholder base, the park will be used beyond Museum hours, and will become an integral part of the local community.
Slope restoration, forest rehabilitation and inviting local communities
Morning cotton harvest in the fields. Visitors are immersed in an ancestral, productive landscape, allowing them to consider the Righteous Armies in the context of everyday life. Rice, indigo, cotton, and hemp fields can be rented out by local farmers. Productive life is brought back to the site.
In Times of Peace: A Fall Day in the Village. The site houses an artist residency for people in different fields. Craftsmen, using traditional materials grown on site, as well as artists and scholars can stay at the local hostel and make use of the flexible village square, which serves as a space for performance and gatherings, as well as for seasonal agricultural events like drying of persimmons and processing of plum fruit.
Reaching the summit, visitors arrive at the museum as one would have reached a righteous army encampment in the forest, and on the mountain. Overlooking the Yeongsan river, the monuments come into clear view, each with a relationship to its surrounding landscape.
This exhibition space tells the story of the 1592-1598 lmjin War. The space is only open on one side, where a long clerestory window provides a view into the under canopy of the forest above. The exhibition is a continuation of the forest into the museum. There are as many soldiers as trees in the forest, many anonymous, but each with a story to tell. Personas are recreated through artifacts. Stories are told in clearings within the exhibition space.
Overlooking the Joellanam-do landscape, the story of local Righteous Armies can be told within their regional context.
Sejong Museum Gardens - National Museum Complex of South Korea
Office Ou has been announced as the winner of South Korea's International Competition for the National Museum Complex Master Plan of the New Administrative City (Sejong City). Chosen as the winning design among a field of 81 entries from 26 countries around the world, Office Ou's Sejong Museum Gardens will play a crucial role in shaping the cultural landscape of South Korea's new metropolis. The competition entry was made in collaboration with Junglim Architecture as the local architect of record.
| Location: | Sejong, South Korea |
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| Status: | Competition Winning Entry (Under Construction) |
| Date: | 2016 - Present |
Office Ou has been announced as the winner of South Korea's International Competition for the National Museum Complex Master Plan of the New Administrative City (Sejong City). Chosen as the winning design among a field of 81 entries from 26 countries around the world, Office Ou's Sejong Museum Gardens will play a crucial role in shaping the cultural landscape of South Korea's new metropolis. The competition entry was made in collaboration with Junglim Architecture as the local architect of record.
Sejong City, the new administrative city of South Korea, shifts many of the national government's functions south from Seoul. Already home to 36 government agencies and over 300,000 residents,
Sejong City's growing political and administrative importance will be complemented by what the competition promoters hailed as a “world-class cultural complex that will be on par with Berlin's Museuminsel, Vienna's Museumsquartier, and Washington D.C's Smithsonian museums.” Situated in the heart of the nascent city along the bank of the Geum River, Sejong’s National Museum Complex will be a major cultural center for all of Korea, hosting a diverse range of new institutions. Museums devoted to Architecture and the City, Design, Digital Heritage, Natural History, and Korea's Archival Traditions will join Office Ou's National Children's Museum, along with a number of smaller institutions. In total, nearly a dozen museums—an exact number has yet to be set—will be spread throughout the site.
A - Central Operations Center
B - National Children's Museum
C - Additional Museums
D - Natural History Museum
E - National Archives Museum
F - National Digital Heritage Museum
G - National Design Museum
H - National Architecture and City Museum
I - Central Plaza
K - Terracing Rice Paddies
L - Wetlands
M - Che Creek Ecological Corridor
N - Mountain and Forest Landscape
Office Ou's master plan for the 190,000 m² site combines the remarkable and diverse surrounding landscape (rice paddies, wetlands, forests, riverbanks, urban fabric), with the basic logic of Korea’s Joeseon Dynasty palace architecture. Like the palace, Sejong Museum Gardens uses a consistent architectural language throughout, but differentiates itself through changes in scale, and in response to the natural topography. Its architecture does not strive to be iconic in itself, but instead acts as a frame or vessel for landscape, drawing it into a set of courtyards and forecourts. Each museum's identity is reinforced by thematic links to an associated landscape.
For example, the productive orchard landscape that characterizes the Children's Museum invites kids to play and explore the space. The Archives Museum will be set within a mountainous topography, fostering an appropriate sense of seclusion and security. The Architecture Museum is defined by hard landscaping with a distinctly urban feel, relating to the city’s developing retail and arts district across the Che Creek. In naming the project Sejong Museum Gardens, the garden is recognized as a vital link between culture and nature. Our hope is that the project can give the people of Sejong—and South Korea—a place to understand and nurture this relationship.
The competition jury praised the project’s “exquisite control of space,” as well as “the spatial relationship between nature and built form, which is successfully anchored in human scale.” Particular acclaim was also reserved for “the interpretation of nature as an architectural element,” and the unorthodox decision to emphasize landscape over built form. The competition jury included South Korea's Sungkwan Lee of Seoul National University, Yongmi Kim of Geumseong Architects & Engineers, Junsung Kim of Konkuk University and Architecture Studio hANd, and Sunghong Kim of the University of Seoul, as well as Japan's Nobuaki Furuya of Waseda University and Studio Nasca, and Christopher Sharples of SHoP Architects from the United States.
Following the completion of the masterplan, Office Ou designed the first three buildings of the National Museum Complex, working in partnership with South Korea's Junglim Architecture. These include the National Children's Museum, the Museum Complex's Central Storehouse and Central Operations Centre.
The first phase of the project, comprised of 3 buildings was completed in 2024.
Depiction of Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung palaces, circa 1830.
Materials and landscape combine to form unique identities for each museum
Architectural design - basic formal guidelines
Architecture Museum forecourt
Design Museum forecourt
Digital Heritage Museum forecourt
Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
Additional Museums
Children's Museum Approach
Children's Museum Forecourt in winter
Children's Museum stair down to exhibition areas
Children's Museum exhibition courtyard
Children's Museum terrace
Sejong Central Operations Center and Storehouse
A new central operations center, offices and central storehouse for the new National Museum Complex of Korea
| Location: | Sejong, South Korea |
|---|---|
| Status: | Built |
| Date: | 2024 |
| Local AOR: | Junglim |
Office Ou was awarded the contract to design both the central operations center (COC) and the central storehouse of the new National Museum Complex of Korea.
Initially, the COC was solely to be home to the the office spaces of the new National Museum Complex of Korea. Yet, due to its prominent location at the entrance of the museum complex, we believed that it could serve a much broader purpose, becoming a core part of visitors’ experience:
1) It is an orientation beacon for visitors arriving to the site, a place where people can plan their visit and learn about the history of the museum complex.
2) A connector that provides access between the office spaces, flexible event spaces, cafés and restaurants above grade, and the parking as well as storehouses below.
3) A flexible event space at grade, opening both onto the complex’ entry plaza and its central plaza, that can welcome a diverse range of changing exhibition (that may or may not be related to the individual identities of the complex’ many museums.)
The storehouse is home to both highly specialized conservation, preservation and storage spaces, and to flexible spaces that can change over the years as the exhibitions, collections and aims of the cultural institutions of the Museum Complex evolve.
Jeju Island Jusangjeolli Living Heritage
Designed in collaboration with South Korean landscape architecture office HLD, this proposal was the runner-up in an invited competition to redesign the visitor experience at one of Jeju Island’s most characteristic natural heritage sites.
| Location: | Jeju Island, South Korea |
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| Status: | Competition Runner-up |
| Date: | 2018 |
| With: | HLD Landscape |
Designed in collaboration with South Korean landscape architecture office HLD, this invited competition proposal tells the many-layered story of one of Jeju Island’s most important heritage sites, the Jusangjeolli columnar jointing area, where a forest of polygonal basalt columns formed when molten lava flowed into the sea and cooled under particular conditions. Through a mix of evocative landscaped zones, and a set of complimentary pavilions, the project reveals the history of the spectacular geological formations, the island’s volcanic origins, its pine forests and ancient mythology, local fishing traditions and agricultural practices, recent scientific research, and the impact tourism culture.
Vistors to the park would move through a series of highly evocative landscapes. Fields of volcanic gravel related to the area’s famous dry-stone windbreak walls. Agricultural areas, planted in resilient native species of coastal meadow, would tell of the history of the islands agricultural practices and settlement patterns. In other areas, soil is scraped away to reveal the underlying volcanic clinker, displaying the flow of magma from a nearby volcanic cone. Near the coastline, where there is enough soil, the island’s characteristic pine trees are re-established. All these landscapes are supported by a set of complimentary pavilions, which offer places of rest and shelter, or exposure and adventure, infrastructure for practical use, and places to gather.
Viewing Platforms
Lightweight platforms made of stainless steel grating over rough clinker, and textured concrete on flatter ground, expand the experience of visitors right up to the edge of the basalt formations, and create opportunities to gather in groups as well as enjoy the view in solitude.
Cultural Experience Zone
Further inland, the relationship between the island’s geology and centuries of human inhabitation is revealed, in an partly sunken pavilion that provides a gather space for public talks and performances.
Geological Exploration Zone
At the site’s eastern gateway, a ranger pavilion with a rooftop lookout provides a base for park staff, sho will provide guided tours of the site’s more sensitive areas.
Wave Cove
Where the ocean waves meet a cove in the cliffs, they are focused into an impressive spray of water, which is further amplified by the polished concrete canopy of the wave cove. The experience here focuses on the lives of the Haenyeo, the women divers of Jeju Island, who dive without oxygen tank, well into their 80’s, to gather shellfish like abalone and urchins.
Neobaegii Market:
Over the years, the park has provided a space for local villagers to sell their crafts and produce. A set of market pavilions at the park entrance, in close proximity to the ticket and information stations, provide a permanent link between the villagers and the park. These pavilions are inspired by the informal market stalls found all over South Korea, providing lockable storage space, plumbing and electricity, and a lightweight roof.
The site pavilions are a cohesive family with a similar construction logic, but depending on the location will have different material character.
See the full competition panels: