Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space by Minwoo Ahn is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2024 A' Design Award in Landscape Planning and Garden Design Competition Category.
IronLandscape Design· 2024
Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space
by Minwoo Ahn
Client: Ahn and Partners
A' Design Award Winner in Landscape Design Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #155120The Design
About Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space
Urban Grove's landscaping was planned without interfering with the exposure of the façade and without causing inconvenience to pedestrians of all ages due to differences in floor level. In addition, the combination of resting space and landscaping allows users to enjoy a comfortable rest, and the outside air and landscaping are connected to the basement through the central pavilion, eliminating the boundary between indoors and outdoors. Through this, users can experience the same conditions of the external environment, such as weather, from underground.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Interviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to integrating natural elements within Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space, particularly through the central pavilion connecting underground spaces to outdoor environments, is remarkable - could you elaborate on how this design decision enhances the user experience throughout the seasons?
The central pavilion functions as a focal point to naturally guide customers who enter the basement level by vehicle to the central plaza on the ground floor without any confusion in the pedestrian path. The characteristic of this pavilion is that the central part of the roof is open, and it is a sunken structure designed to let in sunlight and rain down to the basement. Through this, users who enter the basement can experience natural sunlight similar to the ground floor through the central sunken, and at the same time, it functions as a wayfinding function. Users can experience the weather outside according to the season from the basement, and experience various atmospheres according to the season in the same space.
The Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space features a sophisticated balance between commercial functionality and garden aesthetics - what inspired your vision to create this harmonious blend of retail space and urban sanctuary in the heart of the city?
When Urban Grove was planned, the design trend of commercial facilities in Korea was to reproduce world famous places. This is considered to be part of marketing for sales using symbolic keywords such as famous city or street names. We broke away from this framework and thought about the urban functions required by users who actually use commercial facilities in the urban infrastructure planned as an international new city. In the process, we realized that our target was divided into customers living in upper-floor apartments and customers visiting from outside by car or on foot. We also judged that residents of the adjacent old city center needed a convenient mall based on nature. As a result, we planned it as a common natural space within the city.
In developing Urban Grove Complex Cultural Space, you implemented a unique four-area street division with distinct characters - could you share the thought process behind this spatial organization and how it contributes to visitor orientation and experience?
This grand commercial facility is planned to have retail in two layers on the floor plan. A circular alley is formed between these layers, and we decided to introduce different concepts and visual designs to keep users from losing their bearings and maintain interest and concentration in the commercial environment. From any point in the alley, the garden with the central pavilion is easily accessible, and it is easy to cross the garden to the other side. This allows users to efficiently conduct individual shopping and meet with their group.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The exterior characters considering the proximity and distance outside the shopping mall were planned to be connected to large and small houses, inducing central concentration through natural light and outdoor air inflow into the underground floor through the central line, and allowing them to naturally go out to the center of the above-ground shopping mall through the arrangement of vertical lines.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Site area: 32,217m2, Building area: 19,141m2, Building height: 166m, Size: B2F-49F, Commercial facilities: 60,521m2 B1F-3F 585 stores
- Tags
- Grove Mall, Grove Garden, Garden Mall, Garden Square, Complex Cultural Space
- Production Technology
- We set up an efficient horizontal and vertical movement system for pedestrian and vehicle customers, hierarchies according to the width of the line, such as street trees, avenue, a road, and an alley, and focused on passing lines for pedestrian customers living in connected areas. Structurally, it is planned to be able to feel the outside air such as natural light, snow, and rain through the central pavilion in the central square.
- Design Challenge
- Landscape is specially arranged inside the shopping mall, and it is arranged in consideration of the density of planting and the height of each tree type so that the planting of trees does not cover the façade of the shopping mall and provides adequate shade for the rest area. Accordingly, the level difference for customers using strollers, floor fading that harmonizes with the planting plan, and outdoor furniture in the rest area were planned together.
- Research
- Korean Journal of Landscape Architecture Vol.48 No.5 (2020, 10), Youngjun Choi: Trends in Korean outdoor space design. As the importance and function of outdoor spaces in commercial complexes expands, a variety of activities and participation experiences are supported. As the connection between indoor and outdoor spaces is strengthened, outdoor elements are being actively introduced indoors. Improve amenities.
- Inspiration
- We paid attention to the garden under the theme of space outside the city center in the city center. The concept of using a shopping mall according to the needs of the user in daily experiences such as walking and staying in the garden. We have derived landscaping specialization as a condition for the space we want to stay in and want to pass by without aiming for a clear consumption behavior.
- Project Duration
- Geographically, the administrative and business center is the center of wide-area transportation with the development and accessibility of administrative town and business, Samsung Industrial Complex. Originally, the design began in January 2020 and was finally completed in August, and the construction began in August 2020 and is currently under construction with the aim of completing it in May 2024.
- Operation Flow
- Considering the confusion of the lines, an alternative to the centralized radial line and the circulation line of the inner shopping center was derived. In order to prevent users from losing their defense in the shopping mall and to improve their awareness of the places they have experienced once, the street behind the central square was largely divided into four areas, and the concept of each street with distinct characters was applied.
- Image Credits
- Image #1, 2, 3, 4, 5: URICH
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