Daejeon Urban Renaissance, Daejeon - Korea [Competition, 2007]

The main purpose of this design is to find a sustainable model for the upgrading of typical Korean grown city centres, in need of urban renewal.
Generally, the urban renewal projects in Korea call for the accommodation of large programmes often bundled in singular large developments which disregard their urban fabric and context. Although at first sight, this attitude may seem plausible in terms of creating new centres of use and visible architectural symbols to represent and signify the new image of a town, this idea of “bigness” is not an adequate response in respect to a sustainable city development. Most of all, they merely substitute old by new and thus do not make place for a differentiated attitude of re-evaluation of the existing in order to allow reuse and a sensitive exposure to the layers of constituent history.
Large scale developments and their architectural solutions deny the existing scale of the city and the lively mixed use, which as a grown fabric depicts the existing local social and economical sustainable structure that bears evidence of the urban characteristics of liveable Asian cities.
Socially, economically and ecologically sustainable urban design solutions for the urban renewal of Korean city centres should recognize not only the new requirements for smart green building designs but also implement new concept based on an understanding and recognition of the past.

Architect: M. Stankovic + T. Jortzick [Marina Stankovic Architekten BDA]