Indoor and Outdoor Gardens to Be Created by Year-End
Offering Residents Cultural and Rest Spaces
Projects to Link Tourist Attractions Also Underway
Yongsan District Office is undergoing a major transformation. On the 14th, Yongsan-gu announced plans to remodel the district office lobby and plaza by the end of this year to create healing gardens, including an indoor garden and an outdoor plaza garden. These facilities have become landmarks after being established at Seoul City Hall.
Park Hee-young, head of Yongsan District Office, stated, "We will remodel the unused space in the district office lobby to return it as a cultural rest area for residents, and the plaza garden will be open at night to allow people to enjoy outdoor busking performances."
A vertical garden extending from the 1st floor lobby to the 7th floor of Seoul City Hall. Yongsan-gu will create an indoor garden including a vertical garden in the district office building by the end of this year. Photo by Kim Min-jin.
The indoor garden, which is three floors high with a ceiling height of 12.8 meters, will be a 415㎡ plant garden. Inside, a photo zone will be created, and plans are being considered to open it on weekends as a resting place. The outdoor plaza garden will cover 1,400㎡ and will include not only a garden but also a stage and resting areas to enable small-scale performances. It is believed that attracting residents and tourists through the garden and outdoor stage space will also help revitalize the Itaewon tourist district.
Currently, the project is in the design service phase, so the plant species have not yet been decided. Large indoor gardens in buildings typically plant evergreen and foliage plants that suit indoor temperatures year-round. The vertical garden at Seoul City Hall, which is the largest in the world and listed in the Guinness Book (7 floors high, 1,516㎡), and the indoor garden there feature 65,000 plants of 14 species such as Hoya, Ivy, Coralberry, and Philodendron, which are found in subtropical or southern regions.
Yongsan-gu plans to simultaneously promote the district office healing garden, Noksapyeong Plaza, and Itaewon Observatory as tourist attractions. Along with the landscape design project for Noksapyeong Plaza, the district will also undertake the redevelopment of the Itaewon Observatory space, famous as a filming location for the drama "Itaewon Class," by October this year. To this end, a contract for the "Itaewon Observatory Digital Tourism Content Design Development Project" was signed at the end of last year.
District head Park said, "We will plan for Yongsan's healing garden to become a tourist attraction connecting Noksapyeong Plaza, Itaewon Observatory, and the area around Hangangjin Station, and for the area around Yongsan Station and Yongridan-gil to become a tourist district, so that Yongsan can gain competitiveness as a global tourist city."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
