Full, Half and Crescent
Yisabu Dokdo Memorial Park
Honorable mention
2017 Yisabu Dokdo Memorial Park International Competition
Samcheok, Korea
2017
With Sangyoon Lee, Kiwoong Ko
The ‘Full, Half and Crescent’ memorial park has the phases of the moon, which are reinterpreted from Mt. Yukhyang as a metaphor of Dokdo and the Banwolseong - the palace of Silla in Gyeongju historic areas. This park consists of two major parts which are divided by the mountain at the centre of the site – (1) the exhibition area of Yisabu Memorial Hall, Dokdo Experience space and tourist information center and (2) the Culture and Art Village. The edge derived from mountain topography contains various eras and programs.
The design conditions that we have set up for experiencing a pure park to the symbolic theme of Yisabu & Dokdo are as follows:1. Interpreting Mt. Yukhyang as a metaphor of Dokdo;2. Considering space as a connected loop rather than fragmented segments;3. Visually separating the diversity of the surroundings;4. Connecting the functions of the park and the building naturally.
Connection with the mountain and landscape
The low-altitude and massive mountain located at the centre of the site, called Mountain Yukhyang, is one of the features of this site. In order to emphasize the symbolic feature of the mountain, the creation of artificial landscape in the designed park surrounding the mountain helps to extend the height of the mountain. The site is sunken gradually according to the artificial contour. The sunken part continues with the underneath of the main road at the culture and art village.
Crescent-like exhibition hall with designed landscape
The exhibition area consists of two parts – the designed park and the crescent-like exhibition hall. The exhibition hall has the symbolic shape of crescent, which derived from the half moon. The designed park features a form of extension of the natural mountain contour with provision of extensive seating areas like a terrace. It can be utilized for big events such as open air concert outdoor exhibition area. At the bottom of the park, it gently links with the crescent-like exhibition hall.
View controlling with the castle-like walls
The crescent-like exhibition hall embraces the view of mountain outside of the Memorial Park by the opening frames on the castle-like walls, while the sense of height of the walls isolate from the unwanted surrounding view, like the mega-sized factories nearby. Inside the castle, tranquility is secured to visitors. During nighttime, stars from the sky can be seen through the opening frames to experience the peacefulness and calmness.
Promenade-loop surrounding the bottom of the natural mountain
A looping promenade located between the bottom of the mountain and the designed terrace-like landscape, acts as a walking path providing to the visitors to experience the nature, and as a multiple access points to disperse visitors to the exhibition hall and the Culture and Art Village.
Revitalization for the Culture and Art Village
The west of the site is the proposed Culture and Art Village, which consists of plenty of existing residents. To minimize the conflicts between the new proposal and the existing residents, partly of the houses are kept, while the rest of the lands are revitalized with new functions like guesthouses, workshops, cafeteria, exhibition hall and shops, to meet the needs of the Culture and Art Village. The underneath part of the main road became an arcade space which fill up with programs mentioned.
