AAVS Seoul is a workshop series on social algorithms that has run over the past two years. In 2023, we translated biological concepts of phenotypes and genotypes into architecture. In 2024, we built on these ideas to investigate Seoul’s urban evolution. Each workshop held a variety of perspectives, topics and methodologies, but our common ground was Seoul: a collage of heterogenous spaces, forms and materials.

This year, our workshop is called ‘Compressed City Seoul’. Seoul has transformed from a medieval to a post-modern city in just 100 years. This rapid change created heterogenous urban spaces unlike European cities, which evolved gradually. These characteristics are most pronounced in the older districts north of the Han River, called Gangbuk, but they are pervasive throughout Seoul. They can even be found in the Gangnam district, which developed as a planned city in the 70s and 80s.

Urban spaces, architectural form, typology, materials and social systems reached their current states through processes of transformation, variation, decline and mutation – and the city is still evolving. As such, heterogeneity and diversity – which cannot easily be judged in binary terms – have brought about the specificity of Seoul.

However, Seoul is losing this specificity. Sleek office towers and apartments are quickly designed and constructed for capital accumulation, bringing a sense of uniformity to the city. The diverse spaces of Yeouido, Gangnam, Sangam, Magok, Jongno and Euljiro are being erased without any open discussion, replaced by homogenised and commodified urban spaces.

Our challenge is this: how can we rediscover and celebrate Seoul’s hybrid, layered and contradictory nature by interrupting this trend toward uniformity? In our workshop, each unit will address these topics through different perspectives: technology, material, construction, typology, sensory perception, situation or intuition.

PROMINENT FEATURES OF THE WORKSHOP/ SKILLS DEVELOPED

- Lecture Series: Developing a way of thinking around the complex theme of the workshop

- Seminars, drawings, computational workshops and booklets will be conducted and created by each unit based on their given brief