Osong Biovalley Masterplan, South Korea

Osong BioValley is situated next to Sejong-si Municipal Administrative City in South Korea and is intended to be the country’s premier centre for innovation, research and development for the biotechnology industry. The project was designed in response to a competition brief to integrate development in the Osong Valley through a creative and future oriented master plan. Martin was the lead architect on the project. Its design methodology was conceptually driven, but relied at the same time on extensive site analysis, precedent study, studies of natural growth patterns and biomimicry and programmatic development through story-scaping. Its objectives were to be globally competitive through connectivity and livability and to integrate a number of activities - research and development, education, biotechnology industries and cultural tourism - into a sustainable urban complex. The master plan was required to be robust enough to regulate development while responding to different possibilities over time. In response to this, it proposes a cellular layout branching outwards from a social hub, at the intersection of a number of transportation networks and natural systems. Four axes and quadrants are organised in pinwheel fashion around this centre, accommodating research clusters that include education, medicine, industry and agriculture in different ways. At the centre, a strong social and leisure nexus acknowledges that biotechnology is driven by lifestyle as much as by research. PLP Architecture and Tomoon Architects’ scheme was placed second out of 83 entries in an open competition organised by the Chungcheonbuk-do Provincial Government and the Urban Design Institute of Korea.