Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 234

For the Seongsu District development project, Woo-jin believed that “Harmony” was the most important idea.

It was the most important value for the project’s direction and Woo-jin’s main design idea.

From the moment Woo-jin suggested this project to Seoul Mayor Gu Yun-kwon, it needed to achieve two goals: benefit the individual and serve the public good.

Harmony and working together were essential. Without them, the project couldn’t even begin. Woo-jin believed this idea should guide every design choice.

The project aimed to create premium homes that would make residents in older areas happy, a beautiful Han River Park for everyone visiting Seongsu-dong to enjoy, and a stunning landmark to make Seoul an even more beautiful city.

To create the best space that achieved all these goals, Woo-jin had to make harmony the most important value in the design process.

“Everyone, what do you think is most important about this Han River Renaissance project?”

Woo-jin started his presentation confidently, sharing the value he believed in.

“Is it just to make the Han River beautiful? If so, why are we making it beautiful?”

Woo-jin’s way of speaking made the audience feel like they understood him.

He wanted them to think together and find answers together, and to agree with the conclusion he wanted to share.

“To answer this question, I think we need to define what beauty really means.”

Woo-jin wanted to easily share his design process with the people of Seoul, so they could understand his planning for the project.

“Because beauty is more than just how something looks.”

He explained how much he had worried during the project, what those worries led to, and how they could be shown through the design.

“When it comes to space, beauty can come from how easy it is to use that space, the good feelings it brings, and even new experiences that you can’t find in similar places.”

He believed that only when the audience understood and connected with these ideas could they truly appreciate the value of his design.

“Even without just looking at the outside, so many values are part of what we call beauty.”

Of course, if he couldn’t connect with the audience, his words could have negative results.

If he started with unreasonable ideas that people couldn’t understand, they might reject the design before even seeing it.

However, Woo-jin was confident because he had good reasons to be.

“So, I tried to create the most beautiful design that could achieve all these different values as much as possible…”

Therefore, Woo-jin’s presentation had already impressed everyone in the room.

“That is, I thought it was the closest to the main goal of the Han River Renaissance Project, which is to make the Han River beautiful.”

Woo-jin took the first step of the presentation, speaking each word clearly.

“Good design that can achieve these different values completely.”

Woo-jin paused, looked around the audience, and continued speaking clearly.

“I tried to find the answer in the idea of harmony.”

As Woo-jin reached out, the screen changed from a beautiful bird’s-eye view to the next page.

Jun-ho leaned forward in his seat, eyes wide. He just couldn’t believe what he was seeing. From the moment the young presenter, Woo-jin, had stepped onto the stage and the huge screen had glowed to life, everything felt unreal. *That kid* designed all this? Jun-ho thought, staring at the screen. The first image alone, a view from high above, was stunning. It was so detailed and perfect, it had made the whole room fall silent. No, it was impossible. It had to be.

To create a bird’s-eye view like that, you needed modeling and rendering skills like a company that specializes in computer graphics.

It would take experts with those skills about two weeks to create. From the start, he didn’t think Woo-jin had done it himself, but he couldn’t believe WJ Studio had that kind of ability.

So, Jun-ho thought the bird’s-eye view must have been outsourced.

‘That’s right. There’s no way he could have done this himself. He must have just made a rough sketch and hired a CG company. If they win the project, they’ll get over 10 billion in design costs, so they wouldn’t mind spending a few thousand on CG outsourcing.’

From Jun-ho’s point of view, based on his own skills, Woo-jin’s work seemed almost impossible.

So, he had to deny it and find any reason to do so.

‘He’s using dirty tricks. If they finish the design and start modeling, they won’t meet the deadline… He must have just made a rough sketch and asked them to make it pretty first.’

Jun-ho turned these ideas into facts in his mind as a way to protect himself.

‘It’ll be obvious if he presents a little more… In the end, if he works like this, the detailed design will be completely different from the model.’

But Jun-ho’s hopes were just wishful thinking.

So, after a while, he felt even more hopeless.

“[First of all, this idea of harmony that I mentioned. I’ll show you how it was used in the exterior design.]”

The more Woo-jin presented, the more his ideas and assumptions were proven wrong.

Even when Woo-jin first showed the sketch he had drawn on yellow paper, he nodded.

‘Of course. He’s showing the sketch first. If you compare it to the detailed design, the appearance will be completely different, so he has no choice.’

But then the detailed design and partial bird’s-eye view appeared on the screen, and Jun-ho was speechless.

“[The curve that follows the Han River flows naturally into the Han River Park, along with the landscaping that includes the brown reeds and the soft pink Muhly Grass.]”

“Hmm…”

Jun-ho stopped thinking and groaned. Woo-jin’s presentation continued.

“[However, from this point on, it becomes difficult to add landscaping. This is because the Gangbyeon Expressway needs to go underground from this section to here.]”

The partial bird’s-eye view that Woo-jin showed, which combined the design drawing and the first bird’s-eye view, matched perfectly.

“[So, we intentionally created a difference in height where the road and the existing Han River Park meet, and added natural stone steps. With this design, the concrete covering the Gangbyeon Expressway will connect to the stone steps, and the height difference will be adjusted naturally…]”

Woo-jin’s presentation explained everything clearly and confidently.

“[This is because it doesn’t interfere with the bicycle path, which is like a flower in the Han River Park, and it blends in naturally.]”

The issues Woo-jin was talking about were problems that Jun-ho had also considered while working on the project.

Therefore, Jun-ho was more certain than anyone else in the room that Woo-jin’s presentation was not just for show.

‘He solved the landscaping like that…’

The situation was still unpleasant, but Jun-ho was a veteran who had worked in the industry for over 10 years.

So, while watching Woo-jin’s presentation, he couldn’t help but be drawn into it.

“[The beauty of landscaping is most influenced by the overall view from above. Landscaping should be beautiful to people walking by, but it can be even more beautiful to people looking down from a window.]”

So, the more he understood Woo-jin’s presentation…

‘Damn it.’

Jun-ho had to grit his teeth even harder.

“[And within that overall view, I wanted the natural beauty of the Han River and the artificial beauty of landscaping to harmonize and connect naturally to the Han River Park.]”

With a hardened expression, he could only listen to Woo-jin’s presentation.

“[If the Han River has the most natural beauty, the buildings I designed will have the most artificial beauty…]”

“[The landscaping of the Han River Park that I’m showing you now will be in the middle.]”

“[It serves as a bridge so that two different beauties can achieve harmony.]”

The main thing Woo-jin emphasized while showing the design was how to fill the spaces between areas with beauty.

This public space, the Han River Park, would be visited by many different people.

The private space, the premium residence, needed to be more private than any other space.

Finally, there was the Han River, which was close to nature.

In the end, Woo-jin wanted to create a harmonious space where these three types of spaces could connect and blend together naturally.

“[It’s not just this.]”

All of Woo-jin’s explanations were enough to gain the audience’s support, and that audience eventually included Jun-ho.

“[The space that is harmonized in this way must blend into the beauty of Seoul beyond just the harmony between them.]”

Practicality and artistic design.

Even Woo-jin’s own design ideas and values.

Woo-jin was explaining everything he could using the idea of harmony, and in doing so, he was bringing his buildings to life.

“[I put my heart and soul into designing the shape of this completely transformed Seongsu District… so that it can harmonize with any form, from the curve of the Han River to the skyline of Namsan Mountain.]”

In that way, the best and greatest design that Woo-jin could imagine began to take shape.