Competition "Seoul Startup Hub Guro" in Seoul, Korea
Architecture / Competition
Team: Ki Jun Kim, In Hee Yoo, Gyeong Eun Kwon
2025
From Outside to Inside: The Factory as an Urban Center
Seoul Startup Hub Guro begins by reinterpreting the familiar spatial composition of today’s Korean knowledge industry centers—production spans and floor heights, a centrally placed office core, and standardized curtain wall systems.
This project relocates the functional core to the periphery, thereby liberating the interior and proposing a structural transformation of the traditional spatial order. More than a mere shift in layout, the peripheral core becomes a new axis that connects the city and its people. The production facility is no longer a purely functional nucleus of efficiency, but is reconfigured as an architectural focal point where community flows and exchanges converge.
Rather than dividing space into fixed functional units, we envisioned an environment where diverse modes and scales of work can organically coexist. Static office tasks and dynamic production activities are placed side by side without rigid boundaries, creating a flow that fosters flexibility not only within the space but also in its outward orientation.
Louis Kahn’s concept of served and servant spaces served as an important reference in shaping the project’s spatial structure. The concentration of service zones along the periphery enables autonomous operations within, while the column-free floor plates made possible by the truss structure provide an open platform that embraces transformation and evolution rather than fixed functions.