Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 273

That day, Woo-jin’s congratulatory speech at the entrance ceremony naturally started trending on social media.

Many freshmen had filmed his entire speech from beginning to end.

It was sure to appear online.

The first video quickly got hundreds of thousands of views.

It wasn’t necessarily because Woo-jin’s speech was so amazing.

However, recent news about Woo-jin had been a hot topic online.

So, when a video related to Woo-jin’s activities outside of work was uploaded, it was only natural that people would be interested.

Naturally, hundreds of comments poured in.

More than half were from people who were genuinely curious, about half of the rest were fans praising Woo-jin, and some were critical comments from people who were unhappy with Woo-jin’s speech, calling him a young fogey and acting like he was something special.

Of course, Woo-jin, who had experienced much worse during the public opinion battle with the Architectural Association, wasn’t particularly bothered by such comments.

‘A fogey, I suppose. How old am I, anyway?’

Sunlight streamed into Woo-jin’s office, warming the polished wood of his desk. He sipped his coffee, a smile playing on his lips as he scanned a few online articles. The comments about his speech were still coming in. “A young fogey,” one had called him. Woo-jin chuckled again. He hadn’t thought much about it while speaking yesterday, caught up in the moment. But later, at home, a wave of embarrassment had washed over him. *Had he sounded too grand?* he’d wondered. He was just a designer, after all, still building his name. But then he remembered the faces of the new students, their eager eyes fixed on him. His words had been honest, meant to encourage them. *If they felt that sincerity,* Woo-jin thought, setting down his cup, *that’s all that truly matters.*

Click-

As soon as he got to work, Woo-jin checked the tasks piled up in his company email, then quickly turned off his computer and got up from his seat.

Despite coming to work early, he didn’t have time to relax.

Today was his first day back in March, due to the holidays, weekend, and entrance ceremony.

Having rested for so long, there was a lot of work piled up.

Woo-jin picked up the receiver on his desk and dialed the secretary’s office.

“Is the meeting preparation complete?”

“[Yes, sir.]”

The meeting scheduled for this morning was originally a branding planning meeting for the apartments, a new luxury building project.

The design coordination with Dajin Construction was finished, and it was time to prepare for the pre-sales.

If was already a well-known brand, they would only need to come up with a promotional strategy.

But since it was a brand being launched for the first time, there were many things to consider, so today’s meeting was already the third branding meeting.

However, thanks to Woo-jin meeting with Professor Yoon Chi-hyung yesterday, another issue had arisen for the meeting.

It was, of course, related to the design of the new Magok Convention Center in Seoul, M-tec.

“I’ll be down now.”

“[Yes, sir!]”

There were several conference rooms in WJ Tower, but the place used for important director-level meetings was always the conference room on the floor directly below.

As Woo-jin descended the spiral staircase to the conference room, he suddenly had a thought.

‘This year is going to be busy too.’

Starting with WJ Studio’s first brand, , scheduled to launch in the first half of the year, to the ongoing public construction projects in Icheon and the Magok Convention Center.

It had already been four years since he started thinking he was busy, but Woo-jin was still running busily.

Professor Yoon Chi-hyung said he would give Woo-jin an ‘opportunity’.

That opportunity was the architectural design competition for the Magok New Convention Center, , which would be announced soon.

But here, a question might arise.

Why did Yoon Chi-hyung express participating in a publicly announced competition as giving an ‘opportunity’?

And he spoke as if Chi-hyung was giving up his opportunity to Woo-jin, but if it’s a competition, shouldn’t anyone be able to participate?

Does it make sense to give up a competition that anyone can participate in?

In conclusion, of course, that wasn’t the case.

If it was that kind of situation, Chi-hyung wouldn’t have talked about it so grandly in the first place.

This competition, so to speak, was not a competition that just anyone could participate in.

“So… it’s a private project, sir.”

“More than 70% of the business rights were transferred to overseas private equity funds recently.”

“Then it’s right to see it as a domestic project management company receiving outsourcing…”

“I looked up some articles after hearing what you said, and the business rights had been canceled about twice. So, it seems they were sold relatively cheaply this time.”

Public projects have strict rules for competitions to be fair. But private projects are different. The owner has more freedom. In this case, Professor Yoon was invited to design the convention center, but he passed the opportunity to Woo-jin.

“The scale of the project is enormous.”

“It is. The roughly estimated construction cost alone is three times that of Wangsimni Parafield.”

“To think that a convention center of this size will be built in Seoul…”

You might think a private competition like this, where the owner has so much control, would have more corruption than public projects. But actually, it’s often the opposite.

In the case of these private companies, the quality of the design is directly linked to the profitability of the project.

Especially when private financing such as overseas private equity funds is involved, everything is run by the logic of capital.

Only design skills and design quality determine everything.

Because it was difficult to establish lobbying that would make up for the business losses, such things were unlikely to happen, especially in such large-scale projects.

“It’ll be great when it’s completed.”

“We have to win it. Everyone knows that opportunities like this are rare, right?”

“Haha, of course, sir. It won’t be easy… but we’ll have to try our best.”

And because the working-level staff of WJ Studio knew these principles very well, they were even more motivated when the meeting began.

After the branding meeting for was roughly finished.

When the discussion on the Magok Convention Center began in earnest, the staff members’ eyes lit up and they began to offer their opinions.

“We may need to add more people to the design team for this opportunity, sir.”

“It’s not easy to find people…”

“Is it because you need experience?”

“To be put directly into this project, we need someone with at least three years of experience.”

WJ Studio had already done many projects, including large projects that most design firms wouldn’t even dare to touch.

But this Magok Convention Center project was a volume that didn’t pale in comparison to the Sungsu District design project, which was the largest of them all.

Moreover, since the project was led by a private company rather than the public sector, the remaining profit was even greater.

This was the reason why the staff members could have an enthusiastic meeting with sparkling eyes, even though they had been in a branding meeting for over two hours.

Woo-jin, who had been listening to the stories quietly, opened his mouth.

“As attractive and substantial as the project is… and as the project owner is overseas…”

Woo-jin paused for a moment, everyone turned their attention to him, and Woo-jin spoke again.

“There will definitely be many famous overseas design firms entering this competition.”

As the staff members nodded, Woo-jin continued to speak.

“So, what I want to say is that the competition will be fiercer than any other competition our company has participated in so far.”

WJ Studio hasn’t won every design competition so far.

In the process of the company growing, there were many times when other staff members other than Woo-jin participated in the competition.

And in the process, there were times when they lost the design rights to other companies, of course.

But they had never lost the rights to a project that had been carried out with full effort.

Nevertheless, Woo-jin thought that this project would not be easy.

Of course, that didn’t mean he was saying not to do it.

One of the design team leaders smiled and asked Woo-jin.

“You’re telling us to be fully prepared, right?”

The planning director next to him also smiled and added.

“If you didn’t plan to proceed, you wouldn’t have brought it up at the meeting in the first place…”

Jin-tae, who had been listening quietly until now, added a word.

“We should try it hard.”

This time, the finance director spoke.

“Still, if the project owner is overseas, there will be some design fee for the unsuccessful designs. Of course, we’ll have to check it out.”

“Then we can put our full effort into it without any more worries. If we can at least cover the labor costs…”

Woo-jin, listening to the employees’ stories, felt his mood improve.

Just like himself when he first heard about this project from Yoon Chi-hyung.

He could feel that all the employees in this place were burning with pure passion.

So, Woo-jin, who had a smile on his face without realizing it, started talking again.

This was the first time he was telling the staff.

“If the design is selected, the first exhibition to be held at this M-tec will be the 2017 Seoul Motor Show.”

“Oh… !”

“That’s good. A motor show.”

Seok-hyun, who had been quietly taking notes on the meeting, raised his head in surprise at the word ‘motor show’.

Seok-hyun, who had reflexively tried to speak informally, realized that it was a meeting and hurriedly used honorifics.

People who knew that Seok-hyun was usually a car fanatic burst into laughter.

Woo-jin also chuckled.

“That’s right, Director. How about it, are you feeling a little more passionate?”

The discussion on the specific plan would have to be done in more detail, but one thing was confirmed by the fact that the story had come this far.

The fact that the project was fixed with unanimous consent without any opposition from any of the working-level staff.

“Design Director.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can we schedule a design team meeting right after lunch this afternoon?”

“It’ll be a little difficult to have a full meeting. There’s some work in progress right now…”

“You don’t have to come all. Let’s start with a concept meeting with only team leaders or higher.”

“Okay. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Once things were somewhat settled, Woo-jin set a specific plan.

There were things that had to be done for each part, so he roughly calculated the schedule for each.

When all the schedules were set, Woo-jin slowly got up from his seat.

“Then, let’s wrap up our morning meeting here…”

But then, the design director asked Woo-jin again.

“Then, sir, should we schedule the afternoon design concept meeting for around 2 o’clock?”

“Ah, no. I have an appointment for lunch…”

Woo-jin checked his watch and continued.

“Four thirty would be good.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’ll finish the meeting before seven, so don’t worry. Haha.”

Woo-jin had a pretty important appointment for lunch today.

And the person he was going to meet at this appointment was someone who might give a pretty big inspiration to the design concept of this convention center.