The Winter Youth Olympic Games of Gangwon 2024 is to be held throughout the Gangwon Special Autonomous Province, Republic of Korea, with planned exhibitions of cultural olympiad programs (2024coep.kr) in Daegwallyeong-myeon and Gangneung, the primary locations for sports games. The overarching theme of exhibitions is “The Fabulous Stories to Save the Green Planet.” The Daegwallyeong Training Center in Pyeongchang will host an exhibition on Gangwon's cultural heritage titled “Going Future: Digital Gangwon,” while Gangneung's Gyeongpo Beach will feature a thematic exhibition called “Keeping Earth: Symbiotic Gangwon.” “A Pavilion Saving the Planet” is a work exhibited on Gangneung's Gyeongpo Beach, created with collective efforts by Yesun Choi, the director of the architectural lab at the Dreaming Saimdang Arts Center, and the youth of the lab.
The architectural concept of this pavilion is to express the universe, the earth, and the future through geometric shapes that make up the urban geometry, such as squares, circles, and triangles. The pavilion features a dry wood construction, whose primary components were manufactured with 38mm x 38mm dry wood. Creating the shape of the planet by carving the center of a boxy structure and making a passage through the center of the pavilion on the walking deck, a process is undertaken to create a movement toward the unstable future of the planet represented by an inverted triangular shape.
Although we cannot scull upstream across the globalization of culture, politics, and economy, Brazilian indigenous activist Ailton Krenak speaks about the importance of diversity in the thought of delaying the end of the world. The Winter Youth Olympics, where young people from around the world gather for winter sports and cultural exchange, is considered a platform for connections to respect cultural diversity rather than homogenize it. In the pavilion, we endeavored to encapsulate various stories of saving the planet within the natural landscape of Gangneung. It is hoped that many spectators visiting this pavilion during the Olympic period will contemplate the idea of safeguarding the planet.
For the 2024 cultural olympiad exhibition, we also aimed to convey the story of how humanity has developed and urbanized the Earth since the industrial revolution, only to destroy diversity with our productions. First, in the central hollow space symbolizing the planet, we used red threads to express the gradual acceleration of global warming caused by the carbon dioxide emitted by humanity. Second, as a warning against the pollution of the planet's seawater and the creation of garbage islands, we designed the pavilion's path to feature continuously replenishing clean water evaporating from a central space. Third, we incorporated various narratives of environmental destruction in the structure swinging as a pendulum, and finally, applied diverse methods for saving the planet in the pavilion to promote eco-friendly energy production and consumption, including the installation of photovoltaic panels and lights.
This pavilion was produced by reflecting various ideas of Yesun Choi and future architects at the architectural lab of the Dreaming Saimdang Arts Center. Following the pavilion's creation, a collaborative effort was undertaken with Hanbok artist Sunny Choi to depict the process of global warming. The opportunity for spectators to engage with this representation is intended to be as accessible as possible. Our aim was to encapsulate the story of how the action plan on climate change is regressing by mitigation of carbon reduction despite the accelerating global warming. This pavilion saving the planet was created to reflect the hope for the shift from the inverted triangle representative of an insecure future to a regular triangle symbolizing a secure future.
Team:
Architect: Architecture Studio YEIN
Other participants:
Future Architects (Dreaming Saimdang Art Centre Architecture Lab - Hyeonu Shin, Seokjun Hwang, Junyong Choi, Hoyoung Jung, Teawoong Ryu, Jiwoong Ryu, Harang Maeng)
Making - Jinhun Choi, Definestudio, Sunny Choi
Photographer: Daeyoung Moon
Material Used:
Structural wood: 38mm x 38mm x 3,600mm
