Mangpo Geulbitnuri Park is an ecological community park located in Mangpo’s recently-built residential district in Suwon on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. HEA was commissioned by Suwon City in 2017 to design a major neighborhood park that can become a new destination for visitors from adjacent urban regions.
The first impression of the site was vast & open, this ‘vast’ & ‘open’ quality offered opportunities to enhance biodiversity and encourage community engagement with nature due to the existing rural characteristics of the site which would integrate well with the residential blocks under construction. This initial first impressions influenced HEA’s approach to design a scheme which is not only sensitive to the existing natural element but accommodates for flexible use.
Mangpo Park is not only an ecological, but a cultural park due to its integration with the library. The extension of the existing educational and cultural programs of the library to the wider park influenced the inception new key spaces within the park such as: Grand lawn, Outdoor reading room, Forest playground; and Gardens. These new spaces provide a perception of a unified spatial experience which blurs the physical internal/external boundaries of the library and the park. In order to achieve a cohesive experience, the materials used within the venues and newly designed park furniture reflect the form and material of the library.
Mangpo Park is a sustainable urban ecological park as it preserves existing natural elements such as meadows and landforms in the central regions of the park, where as the perimeter areas of the park function as an urban park to support surrounding schools and residential units. The park’s design and function changes constantly in relation to its urban surroundings by varying degrees of linearity and provide a sequence of unique landscape.
Project location: Mangpo-dong, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon-si, Korea
Design year: 2018
Year Built: 2020
