Hongdae, the region of Hongik University, has been the ‘must visit’ region in Seoul for decades, due to its aggregate of young Korean culture. Food, fashion, and music distinguishes the area from other regions of Seoul, creating the ‘The Feel of Hongdae’, the unique community brand. This research investigates urban condition of this region, trying to find how architecture affected its market. Architectural analysis of its urban interface resulted that former multi-family houses converted into shops benefited from its multi-level façade exposed to street, maximizing the accessibility to potential customers. The economic analysis of semi-basement floor and raised first(ground) floor shows buildings along Wausan-ro double up the ‘ground level’ shop values. Small no-brand shops in converted and split shops had been building the Hongdae community brand, transformed the building condition adapted to the market; adding external stairs, offering optimized store size to each level and optimized location of each shopping type. The analysis of economic value of split store properties reveals inter-relationships between shop sizes, stair locations, uses and the commercial value of the building, which presents how to maximize the commercial value of the street, while retaining the community brand, slowing down gentrification of the region.

A multi-disciplinary approach is used to analyze current trends in environmental and technology color research to provide better understanding of how color plays a crucial role in engineering, medical science, law, design, arts, marketing, and business. The study shows that understanding the complexities of color perception can contribute to better product and building design and the use of color therapy in medicine.

Openplus have proposed a socially sustainable architecture and programme for Mapo oil reserve tank and its parking lot space. Mapo oil reserve tanks have been abandoned for more than 10 years but they are surrounded by beautiful nature and located in the state-of-the-art city, Mapo of Seoul. Instead of filling the space with programme and construction, Openplus proposed an art MADANG (open space) and art TANKs that will be filled and developed by local artists by leaving the site half empty. Instead, transformed topography and laid-out “service pole” was proposed as infrastructure to enable various size and shape of artist studios at Madang, and “service ring” was proposed as supporting space to enable tank to contain flexible programme in Tanks. Mapo Art Madang, Mapo Art Tank will be built by user themselves amd will build its unique character over time.

Megacities in Asia such as Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore is modern and historical at the same time. Although technologically developed and highly urbanized, these megacities’ urban fabric and life-style heavily rely on human scale – the software of the urban – as its main shaping force. This interesting mixture and contrast is what gives this city its unique characteristics. It is very motivating to find out how the software – human, community & social aspects of everyday life, rather than hardware of the city – built environment itself, drive the evolution of Seoul to such high degree. Through continuous research and workshops, the software part of the city is investigated and the lowest level elements in urban fabrication - human are looked at in two distinguish methods; computational and analogue. Differences and similarities between them are questioned, by investigating the contrast between digital and physical, virtual and actual in the thinking process. The study looks at the formation of urbanism and architecture on the level of local communities, mapping the social data, and trying to approach this idea in multiple level and perspectives.