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Dongdaemun Library
Competition
Design 2023
The core design concept of the Seoul Metropolitan Library in Dongdaemun is to organize spaces through loosely stacked and interwoven frameworks, creating an organically and cross-connected journey among the library’s various programs, including bookshelves, reading rooms, and outdoor spaces. This spatial approach forms an environment where knowledge, technology, and diverse narratives can be exchanged. The library’s open design, expressed through intriguing forms and loosely interwoven boundaries that transcend internal and external spaces, serves as a place to restore the sense of publicness often lacking in apartment redevelopment projects.
Spaces resembling piled branches represent independent programs, which can be functionally separated and used as needed. Internal void spaces unify the library’s mixed-use functions, described by the GLAM concept (Gallery, Library, Archive, Museum), into accessible public open areas.
Defined and connected by lighter boundaries, these spaces are constructed with wooden frameworks that can be flexibly organized as needed. Adjusting the height of the masses opens the southern side, allowing ample natural light into the reading rooms. The building’s adaptable form and spatial connections highlight the library’s role within society.
The Dongdaemun Seoul Metropolitan Library moves beyond its traditional role as a passive repository, embracing the vitality of relational interaction and knowledge exchange. Through dialogue and collaboration, it fosters the free flow of ideas among users. The open interior, partitioned by wooden frameworks, functions as living rooms or rooms for group discussions, workshops, and communal gatherings, becoming increasingly intimate and quiet as one ascends from the ground level along the landscape.
The direct relationship between exterior and interior spaces and the cyclical connection of programs can transform the user-library relationship beyond the mere consumption of books and exhibits. Library users engage in dialogue, connect with each other, observe and experience nature, and create ideas.
Architects: Narrative Architects
Lead Architects : Sihong Kim, Namin Hwang
Area : 24,270 m²
Location : Seoul, Republic of Korea







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