Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 283

Min-sun’s voice startled Woo-jin.

“Director, you okay? You look a bit pale,” Min-sun asked.

“Huh?” Woo-jin said, surprised. He blinked, his mind blank for a second.

“Is something wrong?” Min-sun asked, her voice full of concern.

“Ah, sorry, Min-sun. Just thinking about something… work stuff.” Even while answering her, Woo-jin kept looking down at the blueprints spread out on his desk.

Seeing his serious face, Min-sun’s expression also became worried.

The project was almost finished. If there was a big mistake in the blueprints now, it would be a disaster.

“Is there a problem with the blueprints?” she asked, her voice quiet.

But Woo-jin took a breath and spoke calmly to reassure Min-sun. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Whew, you scared me!”

“Sorry, I guess my reaction was a bit much,” Woo-jin admitted.

“Just a little? You looked like you saw a ghost!” Min-sun said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Anyway… since there’s no problem, please continue with your work,” Woo-jin said, nodding towards her laptop.

“Yes, Director.” Min-sun turned back to her screen.

As Min-sun looked away, Woo-jin bit his lower lip, a nervous habit he had when stressed. He placed both hands flat on the blueprints.

Woo-jin’s eyes were drawn to a part of the blueprint where a golden print shimmered. It was intricate and almost overwhelming, like a living gold pattern spreading across the paper.

*Hoo, what is it this time?* Woo-jin thought, swallowing hard. He was completely caught off guard again.

He had spent a whole day changing the parts of the design that were not good enough.

Yet, instead of the previous golden lines disappearing, a golden print several times larger now mercilessly filled the blueprints.

*At this rate, just changing the blueprint a little won’t fix it…* Woo-jin sighed quietly. He felt a wave of tiredness, but pushed it away. He had no time to just sit and sigh.

Woo-jin and the WJ Studio design team had less than twelve hours remaining.

*What’s the problem? Let’s look at it closely.* Woo-jin calmed himself and sat down, starting to study the blueprints carefully.

The change he made before wasn’t the real issue. He needed to find the reason for the golden print first.

He also took out the blueprints from before the changes and compared them side by side.

Since the golden print had increased a lot after the blueprint change, comparing these two blueprints would surely show the main reason.

Woo-jin started to carefully check the blueprints, starting with the areas where the golden lines were most tangled.

Because of the situation, Woo-jin focused very, very hard.

And so, in the now-silent director’s office, only the sound of the clock ticking echoed.

Tick- tock-

‘The north exhibition hall… the golden print has definitely been refined after the modification. That means the direction of the modification wasn’t wrong….’

The D sector blueprint Woo-jin was examining was a floor plan where most of the space consisted of exhibition halls rather than auxiliary facilities.

So, the way he changed the blueprints was similar for all parts of the building.

So, if there was a problem with the way he changed it, all spaces should have been shining gold.

But on the D sector floor plan spread out on Woo-jin’s desk, the golden lines were gathered in the lower right corner.

Even the convention hall in the west, which had undergone the most modifications, was neatly completed without a single golden line remaining.

‘What could be the cause? What part has a flaw….’

Using what he knew, Woo-jin started to check each possible problem one by one.

He quickly printed out some of the partially changed blueprints again, and he also separated the spaces that seemed problematic.

And while making these various attempts, Woo-jin suddenly had an idea.

‘Instead of this, should I print out all the blueprints and connect them? The problem might not be only in D sector, right?’

He worried that if he spent too much time on just the D sector blueprint, other problems might appear in the rest.

‘Yes. Let’s print them all out first.’

Woo-jin immediately put his idea into action, and more than ten blueprints were printed out in succession from the printer.

Creak- creak-

Woo-jin, rolling up the printed blueprints and tucking them into his waist, left the director’s office.

Min-sun: “Director? Where are you rushing off to?”

Woo-jin: “Conference room. Need more space.”

Min-sun: “Another meeting? Already?”

Woo-jin: “No meeting. Just need to spread out these blueprints. Big space needed!” (He gestures with his hands to show a large area.)

Woo-jin quickly arrived at the conference room and spread out all the blueprints he had brought, covering the table.

Because it was a blueprint designing a site of nearly 100,000 square meters, even though it was printed on a small scale, it filled the large conference room table.

‘Okay, now shall I connect them….’

As he connected the blueprints one by one, a subtle golden line permeated along the outline of the floor plan.

A blueprint with such a clean line permeating the outline was a perfectly completed blueprint without flaws.

But as expected, even in the connected complete blueprint, the golden lines in the D sector blueprint were fluctuating wildly.

‘The order is like this….’

Woo-jin meticulously connected a total of twelve blueprints.

After all the work was finished, Woo-jin stood on the chair.

He needed to see the whole plan at once, so he needed a wider view.

Creak-

So, the moment Woo-jin, standing on the chair, looked down at the blueprint.

“……!”

Woo-jin’s eyes, having discovered something, began to widen more and more.

All spaces are formed in relation.

From small rooms to large squares.

All adjacent spaces have a major and minor impact on each other, and these elements gather one by one to give life to the space.

Woo-jin stared at the messy lines of the Golden Print on his screen. He finally figured out what was causing the problem.

He had to look at how all the spaces linked together to see the strange problem in the design.

The moment he saw the reason, Woo-jin laughed in surprise. “Ha!” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Of all things…”

The cause was something Woo-jin could never have imagined.

‘To think the plaza design I changed last minute would be the problem.’

The stress from moments before faded away. Woo-jin slumped back in his chair, letting out a sigh.

His smile disappeared, replaced by a frown. Finding the problem was good, but now a new worry filled his mind: how to fix it?

‘Actually, in some ways, this is the result I intended….’

Simply put, Woo-jin knew about the design problem the Golden Print was showing. It wasn’t a mistake. He had created the flaw on purpose.

So how could this problem be possible?

The courtyard was in the middle of the convention center, like a small plaza. It was designed to slow people down as they walked through.

Woo-jin recalled the conversation he had with Min-sun just the previous evening.

“It’s perfect, Director! Really perfect.”

“Hmm,” Woo-jin murmured. “You think so?”

“Yes! With the courtyard open like this, everyone can move easily between Sector D and H. The flow is so smooth.”

Woo-jin hesitated. “Um…”

Min-sun tilted her head. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

“No, it’s not that…”

In fact, the blueprints for Sector D and Sector E had already been finalized several days prior.

Like Min-sun said, it was the first blueprint to be recognized by the Golden Print.

But Woo-jin had continued to feel unsatisfied with the completed blueprint until this morning.

It was a functionally sound and aesthetically sophisticated space, but…

Woo-jin continued to feel one thing was lacking.

So yesterday, Woo-jin had said this to Min-sun.

“Min-sun.”

“Yes?”

“This courtyard is the core space that connects all the exhibition spaces of the convention center, right?”

“That’s right. No matter which exhibition hall you pass through, you have to go through this space… It’s also an interesting space that can be used for various purposes depending on the intention of the exhibition planner.”

“So, I’m a little disappointed right now.”

“Disappointed…? What do you mean?”

“I’m disappointed that we have to finish this space, which everyone who visits the exhibition hall will see, in such a bland way.”

“……”

“Just now, Min-sun, you said that it is an interesting space that can be used for various purposes from the perspective of an exhibition planner, right?”

“Y-yes, I did.”

“That’s why I’m disappointed.”

“What do you mean……”

“As the designer who designed this space, I want to put more of a message into this attractive space.”

This is what Woo-jin had told Min-sun.

He wanted to share the main idea behind the whole convention center design with everyone who visited. He would use the courtyard, a space everyone would have to walk through, to do it.

“Are you aware that the design concepts of the buildings on the left and right sides are different based on this courtyard? The architectural structure on the left has a more combative and aggressive design tempo, while the architectural structure on the right expresses a comfortable and relaxing space……”

“Of course. You’ve explained it several times.”

“Then do you happen to know why that design came about?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

The ‘MICE complex’ – a place for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions – was designed to be both a place for work and relaxation.

It is basically a space for business, but on the other hand, it is also a space where ‘Work’ and ‘Break’ must coexist.

Woo-jin’s design concept for this convention center started from that characteristic aspect of the architecture, and in that sense, the design direction of the convention center was divided into two.

The designs of the western structures, which are close to the business district (Work), contain sharp and sophisticated styles, while the designs of the eastern structures, which are close to the hotel building (Break), contain soft and comfortable styles.

Woo-jin designed the architecture to encompass both styles, hoping that this convention center would fit together well with all the buildings in the MICE complex.

Therefore, this courtyard, located in the center of the convention center where the two design flows meet, had become a completely colorless space.

“Ah, that’s why……”

And Woo-jin added one last message to this neutral space at today’s design meeting.

“What if we cut off this space, which is connected to all spaces, in half?”

“Yes? Cut it off?”

“Intentionally cut off the flow of traffic between the east and west spaces in the middle of this courtyard.”

“……”

“The convention center was designed to change slowly from sharp and modern to soft and relaxing. By making the courtyard a ‘break’ in this flow, he could show people this design idea.”

This was, perhaps, intentionally limiting the convenience of the space to convey a design message.

But Woo-jin placed greater importance on the former between design perfection and the structural convenience of the building.

“That’s interesting.”

Min-sun nodded and agreed with Woo-jin’s story.

“Then all we have to do is solve the user flow.”

“How about reducing the size of the courtyard a little and creating a circulation path on the outside?”

“Ah, then it won’t be too inconvenient.”

Of course, it was bound to be a little more inconvenient for the user than leaving it as an open space.

They would have to move around the space, which they would have originally been able to cross straight through.

But the slight ‘inconvenience’ itself contained a design intention, so Woo-jin didn’t think that the Golden Print was tangled because of this space.

Woo-jin was convinced that this revised design was much better in terms of the architectural design itself.

And the Golden Print had always presented Woo-jin with a better design.

So Woo-jin couldn’t help but fall into one worry at this moment.

‘I thought this space was the key to completing my design…….’

Is this an unnecessary addition, or a masterpiece that completes the design?

But now, doubt crept in. Was he a genius designer, or just someone making things harder for everyone? The Golden Print was supposed to guide him to perfection, not to a puzzle.