The “Big-O” Design Competition called for ideas to create a new coastal destination which will accompany the 2012 Yeosu Expo in Korea, and will further remain as a permanent local amenity beyond the Expo. In keeping with “The Living Ocean and Coast” on the southern coastal line of Korea, the main theme of the Yeosu Expo, H proposed a multi-faceted cultural arena which will engage and entertain patrons from around the world, and a facility that can be artistically and commercially renewed after the Expo. H’s design concept emphasizes the bubble in the newly created atmosphere of an inflatable canopy. This creates an Air Balloon Festival, a special program of the Big-O, based on a system of expressing the relationship between the sky and the water, summarized as “Oxygen x Ocean = O2.”
The inflatable bubble canopy system, a floating deck system on the surface of the ocean and a fish farm within the water create a symbiotic relationship of nature and spectacle. The system is a simultaneous experience of air, surface, and underwater. ..............
moreThe project was designed in collaboration with Haeahn Architecture.
