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KRX- A new infrastructure for Pyongyang

Part 2 Project 2015
Samuel Bowstead
University of Queensland | Australia
Pyongyang, Korea 2025

Due to the wave of foreign investment into Pyongyang, the Korea Exchange (KRX) has offered to redevelop part of Kim Il Sung Plaza in celebration of the free market proliferating the city.

The institutional shadows of the plaza will be abstracted using the principles of microurbanism. Undulating landscape forms are used to control the temporal (light and movement) which affects programme within the adjacent buildings.

Renovating the old Department of Trade, development needs to happen fast and the proposed scaffold serves as a prototype of retrofitting existing buildings. New circulation and technical infrastructure break down the mega-scale plaza grid into a series of expanding and contracting thresholds, providing the opportunity for vertical density. An LED curtain facade curates internet traffic in and out of the stock exchange below, lighting the plaza and buildings behind it. The public is encouraged to participate in the market, though this means the plaza may fall into darkness in times of instability.

The trading floor is hidden beneath undulations of public space, a deliberate move by KRX to take advantage of their generous gesture. Will Pyongyangers realize they are basking in the amenity of the alter of a capitalist church

Samuel Bowstead

Tutor(s)



2015
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