Mapo-Gu Museum

Client: Seoul City

Date: 2014 Competition

Area: 2 ha

Budget: Undisclosed

AZPML: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal, Manuel Eijo, Lidia Martinez

Local partner: Joho Architecture

The decommissioning of the Mapo Oil Depot and its surrounding land offers an opportunity to construct a public facility for Seoul. The Mapo Oil Depot is also a loaded remnant of another era in which the economy was based on oil, and a militarized society to a peaceful and democratic knowledge-based economy.

The Mapo Oil Depot will create a new type of public space where Seoul citizens will be able to access historical internet databases and data mining engines, as well as environmental data. It will specialize in hosting exhibitions and publications related to the society of knowledge and performance by media artists. This new facility will be created partially as the redevelopment of the former oil tanks, now decommissioned, and the surrounding land. While the hard infrastructure for specific activities will be hosted in the tanks, the park will act as a diffuse field where activities may unfold in the open space. The new centre’s activities will be distributed between the tanks and the park, using a tubular connection between the tanks, but also a more contingent set of park paths.

Each one of the five decommissioned oil depots will be occupied with a distinctive function, which will be determined and shaped by their characteristic drum shape. Every tank will have an independent, high-efficiency environmental control system, reliant on ground source heating and cooling. Given the high volume of space inside, the heating and cooling will be delivered via concrete radiant floors, and air ventilation will use the large volume of air in the tanks to provide natural ventilation.

The tanks will be accessed by a tubular pipe located above the tanks at level +43,30m for the public, but will also have vehicular access through the road running south of the tanks via a series of precast concrete tunnels. These tunnels will be used generally for logistic purpose, but eventually could be used for disabled access and fire escape. The tubular structure, with a diameter of 4,5m, will be built with a steel structure covered with FRP and acrylic prefabricated panels. It will be accessed from the parking through an escalator located in the most central place. It will also be accessible directly from the park in several points. This tubular structure will allow movement between the different parts of the infrastructure, and serve both as a viewing platform towards the surrounding landscape and the Han River, linking the park with the infrastructure of the cultural centre.