Nodeul Island

Client:

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Competition: 2014

Nodeul Island lies in the geometrical centre of Seoul and yet it is detached from the urban fabric. It is a perfect vantage point to witness Seoul, but also to feel the flows of nature: the river flow and the wind, the beautiful sunsets and the scenic views, and the wild nature that grows spontaneously in the banks of the Han River.

Nodeul Island is an ideal leisure destination for Seoul citizens. It is ideally accessible, but it cannot contain functions with peak uses, but rather programs with a more distributed pattern. Ideally, programs that involve small amounts of people but well distributed through the day.

Our proposal is to make Nodeul Island an exploration for urban movement, a series of circulatory loops for runners, cyclists, skater…which channel the bridge flow and distribute it through the island, which remains a natural preserve of the river landscape. Small programs, such as restaurants, cafes, spa, and outdoor performance spots and sport fields will be sprinkled along the loops to activate them 24/7.

The big draw with a small and distributed use will be the construction of a large Ferris Wheel, a 150m + diameter circle which will lift the pedestrian flow along the bridge into the sky, expose them the Seoul skyline, the sunset, the river views, and bring them back to the ground, either to continue walking on the bridge or to join any other circuit of the ones that will occupy the islands grounds, and optimize accessibility.

The Seoul Ferris wheel will be a unique one which will talk about Seoul Citys environmental ambitions. Its a structure will embody seven large wind turbines, oriented along the river flow to capture the strongest winds. The turbines will collect the energy to feed all the functions in the island, including the power to keep the wheel moving.