Learn: Dongdaemun Design Plaza Visual Gallery- Tribute to Zaha

3 April 2016

“The design integrates the park and plaza seamlessly as one, blurring the boundary between architecture and nature in a continuous, fluid landscape,” said Zaha Hadid Architects in a statement.

This is a very very late post. All the picture is taken during my visit to Seoul in 2014. I thought what better way to give tribute to Zaha other than celebrating her work. Despite all the controversy, for me she leave a mark on our architecture history. Like all great architect, she pushes the boundary of space-making , built environment and construction.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) is a cultural center consist of Design Lab, Museum, Art Hall, Plaza and History & Culture Park. Because it is located in the center of Dongdaemun business and retail district, the circulation flow of human traffic that penetrate is taken to consideration. For more info about the project please check dezeen.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza Area

End Note: What the DDP meant for South Korea or what the starchitect meant for Indonesia?

DDP’s design and construction sets many new standards of innovation. DDP is the first public project in Korea to implement advanced 3-dimensional digital construction services that ensure the highest quality and cost controls. These include 3-dimensional Building Information Modelling (BIM) for construction management and engineering coordination, enabling the design process to adapt with the evolving client brief and integrate all engineering requirements. Statement from Zaha Hadid Architect.

This kind of architectural building is surely a tourist magnet. A lot of city in the world attract tourist with their architectural wonder. The old one like Pyramid in Egypt, Borobudur in Indonesia, Great Wall in China. The new one like Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, Petronas tower in Malaysia, Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and many more.

Indonesia is undoubtful has many natural wonder for tourism. From the ocean, beaches, tropical forests and mountains. We just haven’t explore all the potential that nature gave us to increase our tourism. So we are not in immediate need for this kind of things (architectural wonder). So where does this left us.

This is my opinion. As a developing country what we need is the transfer of knowledge and technology from that kind of project (like DDP). As for DDP can sets new standards of innovation on design and construction for South Korea,  it can do the same to ours. I believe it has been done by Singapore and China. Look at them now. As a developing country we have a comparative advantage. Lower labour cost, lower cost of living and lower land and property cost. And most important thing is we don’t have to go through the same mistakes that developed countries make on solving problems. We can learn the best solution/practice from them.

All Photos by RW.