Interview: Susie Kim of Koetter & Kim (Winter 2004)
Sewoon District 4 Urban Redevelopment Competition, Seoul, South Korea (Winning entry)
COMPETITIONS: Let’s talk about one of your most recent competitions where you came out on top – the Seoul planning competition. I recalled one of your statements about urban planning while I was looking at the Seoul plan: “You can’t fool a city.” With that in mind, how did you approach the challenge to create something new in a high density environment, where an old megastructure once existed?
KIM: These ideas are one that come from oneself. You study a city., you know the personality of a city. If one begins by looking, it’s the city that is going to tell you something. Because Seoul is my hometown, I could have a lot of input in the design process. In fact the area where I grew up is just down the street where my grandfather owned a block. I was quite familiar with the nature and characteristics of this district. Historically, it was always the heart of the city. If you look at it topographically, you come to realize what it was historically: it was an important place. (This place) was alive with its history, its philosophy, religion and culture. It was really the heart of it all. In recent years it has been neglected, and for various reasons: the landowners would not sell – they really didn’t need the money so they set a price that was actually too high. During the military era, they put a highway through the district. The canal, which had been the center of much of domestic life, was filled in – it was also part of the city water system at one time. My sense was that if it was going to come back, it shouldn’t ignore its historical roots. There was every reason why it should be something of great quality. It’s not just about keeping up with the Jones’s, just to bring the tourists in, but it had to become the center that it was always meant to be.
Sewoon District 4 Urban Redevelopment Competition, perspective view with reflecting pool
So one begins to come up with an idea, and those ideas begin with those natural conditions, where if you understand the Korean culture, there is a great link to something natural; it’s an authentic place. At the same time there is more willpower to the city than any other city I have seen. It’s possible there that you can have both, linking you to what is to its history; but you really want to be in the position where you are the example of what the city of the future should be also. That’s where we begin, and it doesn’t necessarily come from ourselves, but it comes from the study of the possibilities presented by the given conditions and situation.
Sewoon District 4 Urban Redevelopment Competition, site plan
COMPETITIONS: The way this was explained to me, this will be somewhat like the Potsdamer Platz model from Berlin with various architects establishing their own personality within the plan. Do you see a similarity?
The reunification of Germany in 1989 not only had a great impact on the lives of many Germans, especially those living in the former DDR,but together with the decision to move the nation’s capital from Bonn to Berlin resulted in two major international design competitions in 1992: the first was to convert the existing Reichstag building into a home for the German parliament, the second being the Spreebogen planning competition, which included a chancellery for the head of state as well as needed buildings nearby for the Federal government.
Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
The renovation of Miremont-le-Cret n 2012 was unusual in that the project was the subject of a competition. This building had long been landmarked as one of Geneva’s most significant modern accomplishments, designed in 1953 by a local architect, Marc-Joseph Saugey. The building’s design is remarkable in how it fits into a somewhat narrow, elongated site, but solving the issue of monotony that could naturally arise, had the facades not consisted of a simple elevation with no protruding edges. Instead Saugey came up with the idea of a faceted treatment of the facade on both sides of the structure, thus eliminating any notion of boredom on the part of a casual visitor.
The Rise in the City Housing Competition in the African country of Lesotho presented many similarities with student competitions that have occurred over the past decades, the main link being the presence of mentors as advisers to the team(s) who were designing the entries. One of the most famous examples of this was the winning design for the Vietnam Memorial Competition by Maya Lin, who was enrolled at the time in a studio course at Yale University. In that case it was also a case of students competing against professionals. Lin’s design just happened to find favor with the jury.
The features of a truly international competition were quite in evidence in Prague’s SMÍCHOV School search for an ideal elementary school design: the event attracted 66 entries from around the world, and the winners were a team from Canada and Poland. The sponsors went so far as to even estimate the number of hours spent by all of the architects who submitted entries for the competition (58,800). One can only imagine what that number might have been for the Helsinki Guggenheim competition, which attracted 1,715 entries.
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Sewoon District 4 Urban Redevelopment Competition, Seoul, South Korea (Winning entry) 
