Architecture

Snøhetta's city hall is a sustainable take on traditional Korean design

Snøhetta's city hall is a sustainable take on traditional Korean design
Cheongju New City Hall is due for completion in 2025
Cheongju New City Hall is due for completion in 2025
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Cheongju New City Hall is due for completion in 2025
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Cheongju New City Hall is due for completion in 2025
Cheongju New City Hall's facade will feature translucent panels to ensure daylight enters within
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Cheongju New City Hall's facade will feature translucent panels to ensure daylight enters within
Cheongju New City Hall is slated for the capital, and largest city of, the North Chungcheong Province in South Korea
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Cheongju New City Hall is slated for the capital, and largest city of, the North Chungcheong Province in South Korea
Cheongju New City Hall's interior will be light and airy, with a wooden floor and walls
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Cheongju New City Hall's interior will be light and airy, with a wooden floor and walls
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Snøhetta's vision for the Cheongju New City Hall will extend and modernize an existing city hall in South Korea. The project blends elements of traditional Korean design with sustainable features like natural ventilation, solar panels, and rainwater collection.

The Cheongju New City Hall design was the winner of an international architecture competition and is being created in collaboration with local firm Tomoon Architects and Engineers. It will consist of a new building that will surround the existing city hall and extend it, consolidating various government departments. The old city hall building will serve as an entrance to the site and Snøhetta will add a new library, an auditorium, and amenities like restaurants, cafes, childcare facilities, plus a post office.

"Following the belief that good governance begins with good working environments, the New City Hall provides grade-A working facilities promoting collaboration, innovation, efficiency, and physical and mental wellbeing," says Snøhetta, which also recently won a competition to design the Theodore Roosevelt Library. "The design of the Cheongju New City Hall seeks to unite the currently scattered governmental offices into one holistic space, paying tribute to the heritage of the past while creating a modern, open space for the future. The building's roof and facade are formed by gently folded curves, referencing the shape of traditional Korean roofs. A combination of translucent and opaque panels gives the structure scale and rhythm."

Cheongju New City Hall's interior will be light and airy, with a wooden floor and walls
Cheongju New City Hall's interior will be light and airy, with a wooden floor and walls

Some of the building's opaque facade panels will be operable to enable natural ventilation, while its translucent panels will consist of glass laminated with copper mesh to ensure ample sunlight permeates within. Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) will reduce its draw on the grid and its large sloping roof will be used to manage and collect stormwater, for later use (presumably for irrigation, though this isn't specified).

We've no word yet on when it's due to begin construction, but Cheongju New City Hall is slated for completion in 2025.

Source: Snøhetta

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1 comment
DavidB
I wish people would stop writing and talking about “sustainable features.” :/

Sustainable features are features that can be sustained, but that’s NOT what is meant. What’s meant is features related to or contributing to sustainability, which are properly called (surprise!) “sustainability features,” and that’s the description that needs to be used in this article.