The Banpo-Hangang River Connection Park and Cultural Facilities International Design Competition challenged teams to envision a new kind of deck park that could link the Han River with surrounding communities by negotiating complex topographic and infrastructural obstacles.

Our proposal, “FastScape—SlowScape” juxtaposes the slow and the fast. It draws upon Seoul’s contrasting narratives of urbanization— one grounded in the strictures and linearity of the urban grid, the other in the meandering morphology of its diverse terrains. The project draws out the rich, contrasting physical and social narratives embedded in Seoul’s juxtaposition of these two landscapes by extending existing urban corridors to maximize the experience of view for two different publics. Park-goers and tourists are drawn through the primary corridor, passing between Banpo and the Han River waterfront, while residents of the proposed housing project are drawn along a second urban corridor, leading to a smaller, more intimate view experience. A SlowScape of thickened ground and deep vegetative mounds weaves between the two, synthesizing elements of the site and the surrounding communities. FastScapes are slick, linear extensions of steel and wood while the SlowScape is meandering, thick and heavy, gritty and textural, layered with vegetation, and embedded with topography and park programming.