This design aims to reanimate Nodeul Island as a cultural space with a huge range of functions and potentials, propelling Seoul into the global cultural scene. The proposal transforms the divided island landscape into a cohesive zone dynamic cultural and public exchange zone. The design links various modes of transport with the desire for an elevated, sublime space away from traffic. Nodeul Island, formerly an urban wasteland, becomes a new urban center, an anchor point for Seoul as well as a gateway between halves of the city. The key of the design is a building complex on the west side of Nodeul Island which combines dual functions of Concert Hall and Opera House into one landmark building. This building orients itself toward various attractors in the city such as the Seoul Observation Tower to the northeast and the KLI 63 Building to the west.

Like an aquarium, the building is open to the city, allowing views of the movement of people inside through layers of light and color. Its silvery glass shell connects the two theaters together and features a Grande Foyer which interweaves the circulation of both into a vortex of walkways and urban spaces. ‘Performance’ begins to leak out of the enclosed spaces and into a dynamic urban field of functions including restaurants, public exhibitions, cafes, and bookshops. ‘Foyer’, traditionally a transient space, becomes a destination and a meeting point for the people of the city of Seoul and beyond.

Inside the Grande Foyer is the Lotus Lantern-- a glowing void which is both a symbol of the cultural life inside, and simultaneosly, the main structural element supporting the building. Visible from the city center, the lotus lantern will become a symbol of Seouls support of the arts as well as of the host of lively attractions to be found on Nodeul Island.

The structure of the building is a direct reflection of the dynamic cultural exchange inside. The structural principal confounds traditional heirarchies in favor of a distributed system based on dynamic exhanges of forces and behaviors. Structural performance in this design is no longer tied to rigid definitions of primary, secondary, or tertiary construction, but rather begins to migrate and coalesce inside other building systems and in hybrid configurations.

The Circulation Vortex in the Grande Foyer behaves as primary structure for the shell, cantilevering out of the rigid bodies of the theater-boxes. The faceted glass shell links back to the Circulation Vortex via hyperboloid patterns of pressure and tension elements in order to resolve lateral and vertical loads. The high point of this dynamic interchange is the Lotus Lantern, a spatial void which suspends the roof and floor of the Grande Foyer, exceeding the technical toward the atmospheric.