Dongdaemun Design Park and Plaza is a public space and building project on the site of
a former stadium in Seoul in South Korea.
The site area is steeped in history. Dongdaenum means “Great East Gate” and was one of
four gates into Seoul during the Chosun dynasty. More recently, the area has become a hub for
fashion, media and new technologies.
Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the Dongdaemun project consists of an 86,574m2 building,
a plaza and a landscaped park. The core facility provides space for art exhibitions, conferences,
a design museum, design labs and a media centre.
Dongdaemun Design Park was one of the first projects in South Korea to use BIM and a number
of challenges led to its adoption.
Firstly, the main building’s free-form surface is covered with more than 45,000 unique double
curved aluminium sheet panels. The long and complex design, fabrication and installation
process put pressure on both the programme and budget. Then, the unique free-form annex
buildings had to be created from reinforced concrete. The project team was also very large
and comprised of a number of leading practitioners working from different locations around the world.
BIM offered a chance to address many of these issues.
To construct the building’s façade the project team looked for a quick and affordable
way of manufacturing the 45,000 aluminium panels. As each panel was unique, a way to
mass customise panels without using fixed moulds was required.
Sheet-metal processing technologies considered at the start of the project, could only deliver
panels at a rate of one every two hours and at a cost of $7,000 USD per square meter.
Eventually, the team developed a new hybrid sheet-metal processing technology called “multi-point
stretch forming”. The data determining the form of each panel was extracted from the
building information models.
Fabrication costs and timescales varied dramatically with each panel, but averaged between $250
to $400 USD each. The average fabrication time ranged from 15 to 40 minutes.
Forming the unique annex buildings in reinforced concrete demanded highly accurate construction
information from the design teams.
The graphical information models were sliced every 30cm. That cross-sectional information
was then passed to the form-workers, who used it to form the complex reinforced concrete
shapes.
Despite having access to reliable and clash-resolved information in the graphical models, this
formwork process was extremely laborious and considerably more expensive than conventional
approaches.
The project team experienced some communication and decision-making issues in the early stages.
This led to the creation of an “Integrated Design Room” – common ground where people
could co-locate to discuss, and make decisions about design issues. The teams used their
information models as a tool for communication and decision-making, resolving many problems
much more efficiently.
Whilst many digital communication tools exist, and all the project’s data was stored in
a common data environment (CDE) that could be accessed internationally, this approach
demonstrates the power of having a venue for sharing, discussing, and resolving urgent
issues on complex projects.
Faced with the building’s complex geometry, the Dongdaemun team worked in a BIM environment
to identify clashes and to mitigate rework.
This proved particularly powerful between the structure and the mechanical, electrical,
and plumbing systems. It was also used for coordination with the complex underground
utilities of two nearby subway lines.
Clearly, the primary use of BIM on the Dongdaemun project was in spatial co-ordination and in
providing accurate fabrication data. But the project team felt that played a significant
role in delivering the scheme successfully.
For all the challenges faced, the project now glistens amongst South Korea's historic
capital city, the first step in the country’s BIM journey.