The South Korean city of Daegu has set itself ambitious goals for its future development and has launched a student competition in which several universities from South Korea and KIT students are participating. 

Forward-looking urban planning concepts are to be developed for a neighborhood located directly next to the city center, which is currently characterized by buildings for light industry and handcrafts. The challenge is to develop solutions with balance between the preservation of small-scale typologies and their industrially characterized utilization structures as well as the necessary functional renewal. What are the new demands posed on the urban space considering that technological innovation is becoming more and more important? What can a quarter look like that offers an integration of existing industrial functions with dwelling? The concepts should show a programmatic diversity and offer new typological perspectives for the Metropolitan city of Daegu. From August 5 to 12, at the invitation of the city administration of Daegu and financially supported by KIT, a workshop took place in Daegu as a prelude to the design discussion in South Korea. Based on the intensive examination of the context, first ideas and proposals for new usage mixes, offers of open spaces and a responsible handling of the architectural heritage were developed. Now the students are tasked to use the results of the intensive brainstorming of the workshop for further conceptual work. The competition entries are due in mid-October.

A huge Thank you! to Professor Han Yeol Baek from Hannam University. He and his wonderful team organized the workshop and poured countless hours into making this field trip and workshop an unforgettable experience. A very special thanks to the city of Daegu for inviting us to visit their home and letting us take part in this exciting process. Thank you!

You can download the presentations of the concepts here: